The Plot Bunnies Strike Back: The Angora Strain
by BiteMeTechie
Summary: They're back. They're pissed off. They're Plot Bunnies and they still won't be denied!
1. The Crisis Commences

**Disclaimer:** Everything in the Stargate Universe belongs to someone _else_. However, I own the Techieverse and everything associated with it (characters, creatures, items, organizations). If you even _think_ about stealing from me, it might be a good idea to prepare your hard drive for a _nasty_ crash. Using things _with_ my permission is perfectly acceptable, but used without...well, you're in for a universe of hurt. Comprende vouz?

**Warning:** I'm not responsible for any injuries sustained as a result of reading anything I write so don't bother trying to sue if you fall off your chair and break your tailbone. Wouldn't do you any good, as I'm broke and it would be comparable to trying to get blood from a radish.

A really, really snarky radish.

Radish is a funny word...say it with me. Radish. Radish, radish, raaaadiiiiish.

What? No, I haven't had any Doctor Pepper and pixie sticks...why do you ask?

**Opening Statement:** If you haven't read the Magnum Opus 'When Plot Bunnies Attack' yet...well, what are you doing reading this? This is the _sequel_. As in it comes _after_. Go read the other one first.

-

_Somewhere in Southeast Wisconsin..._

If you can go to bed at three in the morning with the world outside looking like the perfect autumn night and then wake three hours later to find three feet of snow on everything, it's a pretty safe bet that you're a mid-westerner.

If you can do this without registering shock, you're _definitely_ a mid-westerner.

And while sudden snow isn't the least bit shocking to someone who's lived on a lakefront their entire lives, it's still just as inconvenient for them as it is for the rest of the world.

Especially if this particular person had been _enjoying_ the _mild_ thirty four degree weather and forgot to go out to the shed to retrieve her winter coat, heedless of the fact it was December and she would need it eventually.

Quite clearly, she wasn't the shiniest penny in the fountain.

Now that the shed door was blocked by a pile of white powder six feet high because some idiot shoveled and decided 'Hey, this looks like a good place to put all this stuff', Techie (the aforementioned idiot without a winter coat in the house) was trapped inside for the duration.

Now she sat sprawled in her worn second hand office chair half asleep, wearing her green flannel 'Eat At Joe's! pajamas that had coffee cups printed on them, a pair of faded Betty Boop toe socks and fuzzy purple slippers with a hole in one of the soles.

While this ensemble was less famous than her blue sock monkey pajamas it was no less comfortable, and it was a perfect fashion statement for a woman who had one foot propped on a dining room chair and the other left dangling as she dozed, one arm wrapped around her middle and the other hanging over the edge of her chair arm, knuckles brushing the floor in a position that would have caused a person with less flexibility pain.

Techie's head nodded a few times in her sleep and the coke bottle frames slipped from her face and hit the brown indoor/outdoor carpeting, landing at a pair of sandaled feet that hadn't been there moments before.

The sandaled feet led to a pair of ankles, which led to pair of knees which were brushed by the hem of a toga. A freshly mended toga that used to have a shotgun blast sized hole smack dab in the middle of it, which belonged to a short, squat little man whose hands were planted firmly on his hips.

Comicus, the Muse who regularly tormented Techie into writing Crack!fic in the interests of stupidity, silliness and falling out of one's chair. Comicus, fandom Muse of comedy, parody and goofy antics.

The old man leaned down and snapped up the pair of plastic rimmed spectacles that had fallen at his feet, which he then used to tap on the sleeping geek's forehead.

She grumbled and swatted his hand away drunkenly.

"You!" he knocked on her head again, making several hollow sounding thumps in the process, "Up! Now!"

"Hunggenmph." Was the unintelligible and almost unpronounceable reply.

"Up, up, up, up, up!" He insisted.

The author whined deep in her throat, "What do _you_ want?"

"I'm here to _inspire_," Comicus gestured grandly.

She cracked one dark, bleary, bloodshot eye open and glared at him, "Get bent."

Techie rolled over in her chair, back to him and face smushed against the rough fabric of the chair. She waved behind herself dismissively, "Go pester Nenya for a change...I'm tired."

Comicus stalked around the chair so that he was facing the author once more, reached over and yanked one of her eyes open by the eyelashes, "You're not tired, you're hung over."

She shoved his hand away, "I am not."

"Get up, nebish...you've got work to do." Comicus poked her in the shoulder repeatedly.

She slapped at him awkwardly, eyes only open a crack, "Go _awaaaay_. I'm done with Bunnies and Muses and APBA agents. I got nothin' left to give."

"You have a trilogy to complete, remember?"

"Trilogy...trilogy...doesn't ring any bells."

"The Plot Bunny Trilogy," he put one hand on his hip, "You had the naming scheme all picked out and everything. When Plot Bunnies Attack, The Plot Bunnies Strike Back, Return Of The Plot Bunnies...remember?"

Techie groaned, "Stupid Star Wars."

"I don't see why _I_ have to do it," she grumbled.

"You're the one who created the whole mess."

"Operative word: _mess_."

"Get up and get to work!" He snapped.

She flung one arm over her head, covering her eyes, "I don't WANNA! I have other things that need to be finished! I can't start something new."

"You've _got_ to."

"What about everything _else_ I've got on my plate? Do you realize how long it's been since I updated my Lone Gunmen story? Or the Law And Order one? What about the Smallville thing I started all those weeks ag-"

Techie suddenly found herself two inches off the floor, held up by the collar of her shirt by the incredibly persistent, incredibly short fused Muse, "Now look here, we've got a crisis situation on our hands you shmuck."

"Crisis?" Techie squeaked, "You mean _other_ than the fact a _fictional_ character has me by the neck? I think it's time for my doc to up my dosage."

Comicus ignored the fact that Techie was questioning her own sanity and continued, "A CRISIS! The APBA agents are only _officially_ active when _you're_ writing them."

The geek that was held above the Muse's head squirmed, "Yeah? So?"

"So? So the longer you wait, the worse it's going to get! We _need_ them! They were the only thing that was keeping order going in the fandoms! It's utter chaos out there!"

"Alright, ALRIGHT! Put me down!"

**PLOP**.

Techie was dropped unceremoniously into her chair, glasses replaced on her face and the keyboard was placed in her lap.

"Get to work," Comicus said urgently, watching as Techie's fingers flew over the keys, "Faster!"

She glared up at him. "Would you give me a break? I only type a hundred words a minute and I need thinkin' time too, geez."

"If you actually _think_ about what you're writing we'll be stuck here all week," The Muse countered, "Fly by those pants!"

"For cryin' out loud, Comicus, don't get your panties in a bunch!" Techie exclaimed, still typing, "What's this _crisis_ you're on about anyway?"

Comicus looked at her severely, eyes fearful.

"They're calling it the Angora Strain."

-

A/N: I'm baaaaaaaaaack.

A whole what, two days without an active APBA story? You must have been positively _dying_ without me.

I want to thank flubber, who coined the term 'Angora Strain', which gave me the idea for this story's plot. WPBA was blamed on Strawberry Cupcake, I'm blaming this one on flubber. Hey, maybe someday one of _you_ will get to be blamed for a story of mine. It's something to aspire to, ain't it?


	2. Graduations And Confusions

_Three weeks After The Events Of When Plot Bunnies Attack..._

The auditorium at the Anti Plot Bunny Agent's Academy was filled to the rafters with proud parent after proud parent, waiting to see their soon-to-be graduated children be given their diplomas, badges and division assignments.

One of these _proud_ parents, though the young Buster she was waiting on wasn't her child, was Charlotte Walker.

Dawn had just finished up her six month training period. Any minute, she would step up on that stage and receive her badge, patch, certificate of division assignment and become a _real_ Bunny Buster.

Charlotte was busting with pride. Almost as much as any of the real parents who were gathered in the room. To help a cadet go from newb to full fledged Buster was no small task and every time she and Lennon trained one it was like raising a child and finally sending it off to college.

"Joshua Pakscow," the announcer on the stage said into the microphone, "Agent Number Four Three Two Nine. Division assignment and specialty: Horror and communications."

Raucous applause flowed out from the crowd and Charlotte joined in as the announcer shook the young man's hand and congratulated him.

"Loraine Palaski," the announcer...announced, moving on to congratulate the next in a rapidly shrinking line of cadets, "Agent Number Five Nine Six Four. Division assignment and specialty: Comedy and combat."

Charlotte glanced down at her watch and then looked around herself.

Where was Lennon? If she didn't hurry up, she was going to miss it. Dawn would be crushed if Lennon missed her graduation.

"Linda Paulson, Agent number four nine three one. Division and specialty: Law Enforcement Universes and combat."

As Charlotte continued to glare at her watch, Dawn was scanning the crowd from her vantage point onstage.

She could see Charlotte in the audience (after all, that hair is hard to miss) but she also saw that the seat next to her was empty.

**BUMP! THUD! CRASH!**

The microphone was unceremoniously yanked from the announcer's hand as a loud, resounding **THUMP** echoed through the hall.

Lennon Fisk-

Techie waited while the applause from the readers died down to a managaeable level.

(How Lennon managed to become everyone's favorite character was beyond her, because she really was _terribly_ obnoxious, but she chocked it up to her L33T writing skillz)

Lennon Fisk scrambled to her feet at the back of the auditorium, untangling herself from the microphone cord that had wrapped itself around her untied checkerboard shoelaces.

As everyone watched, Charlotte and Dawn included, Lennon muttered and griped and tossed the cord aside.

The geek brushed herself off and looked up at the three hundred pairs of eyes staring back at her.

"What're **you** lookin' at?" she snapped, her caustic voice carrying much further than science said was possible.

Dawn covered her mouth with one hand and tried to keep her giggles in check.

Leave it to Lennon to make her graduation memorable.

During this exchange, someone straightened out the cords and replaced the microphone in the announcer's hand. Things resumed as they had been before Lennon's little interruption, and the aforementioned accident prone creature sought out her commanding officer.

"Did I miss it?" Lennon asked as she wove through the packed aisle of chairs and finally plopped down next to Charlotte.

"Almost," Charlotte said, "Where were you?"

Lennon brushed the hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ears, "No place special."

The redhead quirked an eyebrow, "Why do I not believe you?"

The geek flipped her hand obnoxiously, "Because you're a paranoid woman, that's why."

"Or it's because you're not trustworthy..." Charlotte gave Lennon a mock glare.

"That too."

"And you smell like Aqua Velva."

Lennon grabbed the collar of her t-shirt and brought it to her nose, giving it a sniff, "I do not."

Charlotte narrowed her eyes at her teammate dangerously, "Lennon..."

"What? I bumped into Burg on the way in!" She snapped, "Am I not allowed to collide with people now?"

"Not when they smell like _him_, no."

Lennon's eye went wide and she puffed out her chest haughtily, "And how would _you_ know what _he_ smells like? I think if there's been anyone sneaking off to fandoms while no one is watchin' it's been _you_, Charlie."

"Lenny!" Charlotte exclaimed, scandalized.

"SHH!" An obnoxious woman sitting beside Lennon snapped, "I'm trying to watch my daughter graduate!"

Lennon rolled her eyes and made a face, but shut her mouth. Charlotte, meanwhile, apologized for Lennon's behavior before she turned to look at the geek reprovingly.

"We're here for _Dawn_...remember, Lenny?" Charlotte asked, "Dawn? The nice girl who's going to be our new _permanent_ teammate? The blonde you delight in calling 'string bean'?"

Lennon gave Charlotte a patented 'I could bite your head off right now if I wanted to' patronizing grin, "I _know,_ Charlotte." The grin faded somewhat, replaced by a far away look, "I can't believe she's graduating already...doesn't feel like it's been six months."

Charlotte nodded in understanding and squeezed her friend's shoulder, "We're finally going to have a communications expert again."

"Yeah," Lennon replied wistfully, smiling genuinely, "It'll be nice to have a permanent teammate again, instead of being a revolvin' door for rookies."

"Dawn Perry," the announcer said. The stringy haired blonde stepped forward, beaming. The announcer held out a leather wallet, which contained the shining silver and red badge that made her an official Bunny Buster in the eyes of the government.

"Lenny, I think I'm gonna cry."

"Don't you _dare_..."

"Agent Number Nine Four Two Seven." To Dawn's sleeve, the red and white Bunny Buster patch was pinned reverently.

Charlotte grabbed hold of Lennon's hand and held on, "This is it."

"Charlotte, those are _bones_ you're crushing!" Lennon whined.

Dawn's smile got bigger as the announcer handed her the certificate that declared where she would spend the most of her career working.

"Division and specialty: Sci-Fi/Fantasy and demolitions."

Lennon sprang from her seat before she even had time to think about it, "**WHAT?**"

---

A/N:D

Yeah...that's all I've got to say.

But I did want to ask something...does anyone think it'd be a good idea to publish WPBA along with the companion pieces written by those who've done 'em? I mean..I'd like to have everything in a bound volume, but it'll take some convincing for some of the fandom's authors (I can't _believe_ I have my own fandom...), since it'd be a labor of love and no profit would be made for anybody..

Ahem...Anyways.

Any theories as to what's goin' down in the APBA?

And why do I get the feeling that there was _actually_ someone out there who **literally** clapped with glee at Lennon's appearance? Fess up...which of you was it...


	3. Hitting One's Head Against The Wall

Charlotte sat next to Lennon, patting her on the back comfortingly as she repeatedly smacked her forehead against the Academy's mess hall table. She'd been doing it for a solid three minutes, since the graduation ceremony had finished, and all Charlotte could do was sit by her and try to calm her down.

"Look at the bright side, Len," Charlotte said as Lennon's head collided with the table again.

"What, I get to spend _another_ six months breaking in a **brand new** rookie?"

**WHAM.**

"No..."

**WHAM.**

"Oh...you mean the utter humiliation of losing yet _another_ prospective teammate?"

**WHAM.**

"Lenny," Charlotte grabbed her comrade by the back of the hair to keep her from causing herself brain damage, "She's following in your footsteps...you ought to be proud."

"Proud? Proud? I outta be _proud_?" Lennon replied, shaking out of Charlotte's grasp as she had a Hellboy 'She took his picture' moment.

"Let me tell you something, Charlie," Lennon began, pegging a finger at her commanding officer, "Dawn was the first teammate we've had since...since...WELL! The first teammate we've had over the past couple of years who's had half a brain in her skull."

"I'm sure she'd be thrilled to hear you say that, Lenny," Charlotte answered with a trace of sarcasm in her voice.

"Oh shut up, Charlotte," Lennon snapped impatiently, "With her going into demolitions instead of communications, we're going to have to get _another_ teammate. I am **not** going to break in another four newbs before I come across one that's somewhat passable as sentient. I just don't have the energy for it anymore."

Lennon sat back in her chair heavily and leaned backwards to stare at the ceiling, "I think I'm going to retire, Charlie."

Charlotte scoffed, "At twenty five?"

"Thirty two, Charlotte, I'm **thirty two**."

"Fandom age doesn't count," Charlotte said dismissively.

"Oh yes it does," Lennon countered, "Just because my body hasn't aged that much doesn't mean I didn't _live_ those years just the same." Lennon cracked her knuckles, "I'm _tired,_ Charlie. I count on my teammates to carry some of the load and the rookies just aren't cuttin' it anymore. For all intents and purposes, it might as well just be you and me alone out there with all the help the newbs offer. I mean, I spend more time explaining things to them than doing actual _work_. I'm sick of dealing with incompetent, idiotic-"

"I miss her too, Lennon," Charlotte interrupted quietly.

Lennon leveled her eyes at her teammate, "This has _nothing_ to do with **her**."

Charlotte looked at Lennon in disbelief, "Yes it does. You _know_ it does. It _always_ does. You have to face it Lenny, there'll never be another Madge."

"I know that!" Lennon exclaimed, "It's not that I want to replace her, I just-" Lennon gestured helplessly with her hands and sighed.

"Yeah." Charlotte nodded, nothing more needing to be said, "I know, Len...but we've still got a job to do. We do the best we can with what we've got."

"I had high hopes for Dawn too, Lenny, but you know how they are when they're young."

"Stupid?"

"Idealistic."

"Same difference."

"They follow their hearts and do what calls them." Charlotte smiled fondly at the geek, "Like we did. You can't fault her for that. Besides, you can take comfort in the fact that she's been properly prepared for what's waiting for her out there because _we_ trained her."

The geek pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, "I hate you, you know that?"

"Because I'm right?"

"It's not so much being right that bothers me, it's the fact I can't argue the point that _really_ annoys me."

The redhead grinned and squeezed the raven haired woman's shoulder before she stood up, "C'mon...we've got a brand new Buster to welcome to the organization."

Lennon whined, sounding almost like a dog, "Do we have to?"

Charlotte chuckled, "It won't be _that_ bad."

Famous last words.

----

A/N: Wow...you know, considering that this chapter and the next one were scribbled in a notebook this afternoon while I was _literally_ half asleep, it's _much_ more coherent than I thought it would be.

Hellboy, in case you haven't seen it...rent it. _Hilarious_. Best comic book movie since...since...well, I liked it _almost_ as much as Batman Returns. Which, from a Bat fanatic like myself, is **high** praise indeed. I actually shelled out twenty bucks to get the special edition DVD _just_ for the 'She took his picture? She took _his_ picture!" scene.

Oh Ron Perlman...you make me giggle so.


	4. David Cassidy Must Die

_**Four days later...**_

"It won't be that bad...IT WON'T BE THAT BAD!" Lennon shouted, dropping to her knees and flinging her arms over her head, "I distinctly remember you saying training a new rookie wouldn't be THAT bad!"

**BOOM!**

Charlotte hit the floor in front of Lennon, her face contorted and her hands covering her ears desperately trying to save her eardrums any more damage.

"BARBARA!"

There was a squeak from amidst the smoke that was billowing from the captain's chair, "Sorry! I didn't mean to!"

As another crash sounded, Charlotte got to her feet and reached into the cloud, pulling the young trainee out of the way of the ensuing blast.

"It's DYNAMITE Barbara!" Lennon screamed as she was showered with debris, "What did you think would happen, you'd blow it out and make a wish?"

**BANG! POP! CRACK!**

The entire room shook and then went still and eerily quiet. The smoke started to clear and Lennon shakily got to her feet, angrier than she'd been in a long, _long_ time.

Charlotte was helping Barbara out of the dirt and debris when Lennon stalked over to the young auburn haired woman, grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.

"What is the matter with you?" Lennon exclaimed, "**EXPLOSIVES ARE NOT A TOY!** You could have killed us all!"

Charlotte yanked Lennon away from Barbara, "Stop it, Lenny!"

"I'm gonna kill her Charlie!" Lennon snapped.

"You'd be arrested, Lenny," Charlotte answered calmly.

"No jury in the world would convict me!" The geek replied, "She almost blew us up...during a _training_ _simulation_ she almost blew us up!"

Barbara's bottom lip quivered as she looked at her superior, "I'm sorry. So, so, very, _very_, sorry."

"Sorry doesn't fix the Enterprise!" Lennon shook her way out of Charlotte's grasp and pointed at Barbara, "Do you have any idea how lucky you were this was a simulation? If this were real, Edwards would have your badge for breakfast!"

Lennon spun on her heel and stalked over to the bright red doors of the turbo lift, which she kicked in with ease.

Ah, the beauty of the very first training mission in 'The Box'.

The Box, you see, is a rigged version of a fandom for Busters on their first training missions to find their footing in. Practice, if you will, before stepping foot in an _actual_ fandom.

Where this _used_ to be a part of the academy training course, budget cuts and idiotic rules left over from when that moron Molinaro was in charge declared that prospective Busters needed to train in 'The Box' with two experienced instructors before they were even approved to go into the academy.

Lennon and Charlotte, being in between teammates at that precise moment, were automatically volunteered. They'd spent the past four days training various cadets, the last of which was this one. The past hour and a half had been devoted to keeping the incredibly accident prone Barbara Kelly from blowing herself sky high.

It was a much harder task than originally anticipated, evidenced by the huge, smoking holes that seemed to be _everywhere_.

Barbara was nothing if not thorough.

By the end of the day, not only was Lennon's patience gone, but so was most of The Box.

After kicking in the fake turbo lift doors, Lennon stepped out into the corridor, followed by a very apologetic Barbara, who tried repeatedly to gain Lennon's forgiveness.

Lennon, who was at the end of her proverbial rope, would have none of it.

"Don't touch me, don't talk to me, don't even **look** at me, Barbara." Lennon said angrily, turning to glare at the young woman with such viciousness that she took a step back, "I'm going to my room and _hopefully_ I'll find a way to suppress the urge to kill you."

The geek stalked off and the young recruit foolishly tried to follow, but Charlotte grabbed her by the arm, "I wouldn't if I were you."

Barbara turned to look at the redhead from watering eyes and repeated the refrain of 'I'm sorry' at least ten times.

Charlotte raised her hand to silence the young woman, "It's got nothing to do with you. Lennon's been a little short fused over the past few weeks with everybody."

---

It was impossible to miss a fictional character this much.

_Impossible_.

Lennon's short temper, which had been getting worse and worse over the past four days, was finally to the point that she couldn't stand it anymore.

She was pretty sure it had to do with McKay withdrawals.

Not that she'd ever admit it, of course.

The geek entered her on base quarters, slammed the door behind her and crossed the room to her bed, where she flopped down.

She hadn't been this effected the _last_ time she'd left a ship behind.

Well, that wasn't entirely true...but she'd been more concerned about Charlotte finding out about it and didn't give the entire situation as much thought as she should have. Of course, back _then_, she figured she'd never set eyes on Rodney McKay again, so it was easier to just push it out of her mind.

But there was something else going on...Lennon could feel it.

It was like there was something conspiring in the universe to reunite her with McKay repeatedly.

The fact that she had her own loyal, rabid group of shippers never occurred to her.

Lennon reached over to her bedside table and flicked on her clock radio, which immediately launched into a commercial touting the wondrous powers of car polish with simonize!

Whenever she needed some easily ignorable background noise, she flicked on the radio. _Talk_ radio, to be exact.

She scrubbed a hand over her face tiredly and laid back on the mattress to stare at the ceiling.

It was _impossible_ to miss him **this** much.

Something weird was _definitely_ going on.

Lennon rolled over, intent on taking a nap, when the radio started to warble.

_I'm sleeping and right in the middle of a good dream, when all at once I wake up, from something that keeps knocking at my brain, before I go insane, I hold my pillow to my head, and spring up in my bed, screaming out the words I dread-_

That wasn't the right wing conservative radio announcer...

_I think I love you!_

Lennon sat up in bed and stared at the radio, wide eyed. The Partridge Family? What the hell?

_This morning, I woke up with this feeling, I didn't know how to deal with, and so I just decided to myself, I'd hide it to myself and never talk about it, and did not go and shout it when you walked into the room-_

Lennon glared at the radio.

A metaphor. Of _course_.

_I think I love you! _

But wait. Something about this wasn't quite right. Even if it _was_ a fair comparison to her ship in places, that still didn't explain why it was playing on _talk_ radio.

_I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of, a love there is no cure for. I think I love you, isn't that what life is made of? Though it worries me to say, that I never felt this way-_

Lennon reached over and fiddled with the dial, switching over to half a dozen different channels.

_I don't know what I'm up against, I don't know what it's all about, I got so much to think about, hey I think I love you!_

It was the same on every station.

Something funky was going down...

Lennon yanked the radio's plug out of the wall.

David Cassidy continued on, undeterred.

_Believe me, you really don't have to worry, I only want to make you happy, and if you say 'Hey go away' I will- _

"It's alive!"

Alright, _now_ she was starting to get freaked out.

The radio's 'life' was tragically cut short when Lennon picked it up and hurled it against the wall with all the strength she could muster.

**CRASH.**

There were bits and pieces of the radio laying on the ground and the LCD display faded to black.

Lennon took a well deserved breath of relief before the small item hummed back to life once more.

_But I think better still, I'd better stay around and love you. Do you think I have a case? Let me ask you to your face-_

Lennon cautiously climbed off her bed, keeping her vision trained on the possessed radio as she crouched down and reached behind herself beneath her bed frame to retrieve the Louisville Slugger that she kept there.

_Do you think you love me?_

With baseball bat in hand, Lennon gingerly approached the radio, practically tiptoeing towards it.

_I think I love you, I think I love you, I think I love you-_

**SMASH! SMASH! SMASH!**

Lennon beat the squeaking remains of the radio into the carpeting with her baseball bat. Finally, it shut off after it's lights flickered and David Cassidy's voice faded into nothingness once more.

"Lenny?"

Breathing hard with the baseball bat resting on her shoulder, ready to smack the thing again if it started up again, Lennon turned to see Charlotte in her doorway, looking worried.

"What're you doing?" Charlotte asked, eyeing the freaked out geek and the-well, what was left of the clock radio.

"It was possessed!"

"Possessed..."

"Yeah! It was playing the Partridge Family!"

"And that's a reason to beat on it with a baseball bat? Wouldn't it have been easier to just change the station?"

"It wouldn't shut off! It was _taunting_ me, Charlie!" Lennon exclaimed, only mildly aware of how insane that must've sounded.

"Len, are you feelin' ok? I know that you've been feeling kinda-"

"I'm _fine_!" The geek said heatedly, using the baseball bat to point at the very, very dead radio, "I'm not nuts, Charlotte. It wouldn't change stations _or_ shut off. I unplugged it and everything! It was like it'd been infected with by a sentient technology virus!"

"Sentient technology viruses can't exist outside the fandoms," Charlotte answered, brow furrowed.

"I know that, hence the baseball batage." Lennon suddenly straightened out, "What're you doing in here anyways?"

"There's been an emergency meeting called by the Committee."

Lennon, now recovered from her radio run-in, dropped her baseball bat and nudged it back under her bed with her foot, "Yeah? So?"

"_We've_ been invited," Charlotte stated.

"Aw, crap."

------

A/N: I hereby claim 'I think I love you' by the Patridge Family as the official Lenny/Rodney anthem.

Why?

Because I can.

And when listening to it, for some reason, it seemed appropriate.

Ahem.

What is up with Lenny's whacked out radio? Why are they being called before the committee?

Uh...I'll figure it out...I hope. -is really good at painting herself into pickles-


	5. Oh No, Not Again

_Meanwhile, in the Pegasus Galaxy, in the fictional Stargate Universe, which was even **more** fictional than the world of the Plot Bunny Busters..._

In retrospect, it should have been _blindingly_ obvious that this particular mission would be a failure.

After all, any planet that went by the designation MU0-B4LL wasn't bound to be good.

Sadly, for SGA-1, none of them could decipher L33T SP34K and therefore didn't make the connection that MU0-B4LL translated roughly as 'Mudball' in the obscure gamer language (which Techie 'speaks' fluently).

As such, none of them had suspected that twenty minutes after finding their way into the seemingly unoccupied village (which was made up of clay huts and hadn't so much as a blade of grass in sight) they would be descended on by the natives.

The _angry_, eight foot tall, made-of-mud-and-therefore-unaffected-by-bullets natives.

Rodney McKay had never run so fast in his life.

The second that the mud men had started walking towards the team, looking very Zombie-like and unresponsive to any kind of verbal communication, Sheppard had wisely raised his weapon.

The second his bullet hit the barrel like chest of one of the monsters and was swallowed up without doing any damage, they did the _next_ wisest thing.

They ran like hell.

Once they reached the gate, McKay started the dialing sequence immediatly. The mud men were gaining on them at a speed which didn't seem possible; especially considering the fact it seemed to take them twenty minutes to take a single step, what with all the 'Ungggh'-ing and dragging of feet.

But they still gained and Rodney dialed as quickly as his fingers possibly could manage. The last thing he needed was to be eaten by mud people...

Honestly, how would _that_ look on his headstone?

Rodney McKay, Astrophysicist, Hero, Eaten Alive By Mud People.

As the Stargate KAWOOSHED and Sheppard started dialing the identification code that would allow them access to Atlantis, Rodney glanced behind himself to see the Mud Men were but a few feet away.

With all of the panic that was settling into his chest cavity, it was a miracle he noticed it.

Hopping along by a Mud Man's foot, dark, _dark_ maroon and with a stark, arresting twinkle in it's eye, was a bunny.

As Sheppard grabbed McKay by the collar and pushed him towards the gate, the thought that ran around inside Rodney's head was that Mud Men were going to be the _least_ of their problems.


	6. 8675309, Lenny I Wish I Had Your Number

Rodney paced up and down his quarters, practically wearing a track in the floor with the force of his stomps.

A bunny.

A bunny!

There had been one of those dreadful, fluffy things that had proved to be the bane of his existence on that planet...

It was only a matter of time before they were back _here_...

The second that Rodney and his team had returned to Atlantis, he'd practically _run_ straight for Weir's office to let her know about what he had seen and that _something_ had to be done...

_Soon_.

They both agreed that the Anti Plot Bunny Agency had to be contacted as soon as possible in order to combat the threat before it got to be as overwhelming as it had been _before_...

The only problem with this line of reasoning was that they had no idea _how_ to contact _them._ It's not as though they had left a phone number in case of emergency...Rodney had just assumed that they would keep to their promise of sending a team once every so often to check up on them--

(And let's not get into Lennon's late night visit of a few days prior...Rodney _highly_ doubted that counted as an 'official' mission)

So they were left in the lurch, to _wait_ until the APBA _sent_ someone.

Rodney continued pacing.

If only he had Lennon's phone number!

He paused.

Not that he would ever...actually..._call_ her...since that would mean..._talking_ to her...

It isn't that he didn't like conversing with her but...well, he was never very good with the whole...talking with the emotions and the...

He slammed his fist on the nearest available surface angrily, "Damn it!" and immediately regretted doing so.

Where was she when he desperately _needed_ her?


	7. The Angora Strain

_To answer Rodney's question of 'Where the hell is Lenny when I need her?', we now join an APBA conference, currently in session..._

Lennon and Charlotte weren't the only APBA agents called to one of the large auditoriums in the Agency's headquarters...about two dozen _other_ teams were there as well, from every conceivable division and with every possible specialty.

This fact didn't escape the two friend's notice, but it was superseded by the fact that the man commanding everyone's attention was Commissioner Neil Edwards himself. A man who'd been running the agency quite a bit more quietly than his predecessors and mostly stayed out of the limelight. Commissioner Edwards knew full well just how much damage the commissioner before him, Roland Molinaro, had done with his constant interference, and wisely decided to work more _behind_ the scenes, where bureaucrats like himself belonged. He seldom made public appearances, much less called together an assemblage of APBA agents intent on addressing them personally.

"Commissioner Edwards is giving the speech?" Lennon remarked unnecessarily as she and Charlotte took seats in the back of the audience, "This must be _huge."_

One of Edwards' assistants pulled him aside momentarily and the commissioner nodded sharply before turning back to the assembly, hands raised, "If I may have your attention please, agents?"

All the small talk that had been going on in tiny whispers ceased completely. The hall fell deathly silent as Edwards clasped his hands behind himself in a position of easy authority.

"No doubt you are all wondering why I've called this emergency meeting of a few select APBA teams rather than calling in all agents in full force." Edwards cleared his throat, "You have all been selected based on your skill in the field and your proficiency in the fandoms for a very, _very_ important assignment. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a crisis on our hands."

Charlotte and Lennon glanced at each other before Edwards continued.

"Before I relate the nature of this crisis and the details thereof, I must impress upon all of you the seriousness of this situation. This could very well be the most dangerous mission that any of you _ever_ undertake, and should you decide to accept it, there will be no going back. You can't change your mind after you know what the task entails. We're playing for keeps here."

"What I tell you doesn't leave this room under any circumstances. If you're found to have spoken of this situation with anyone, you will be terminated." The commissioner looked around at the assembled agents pointedly, "And I _don't_ mean fired."

"If he brings out a red pill and a blue pill and starts talking about rabbit holes, I'm outta here," Lennon whispered behind her hand to Charlotte.

Edwards continued, unaware of Lennon's statement, "All of you who don't wish to be a part of this have the opportunity to leave now. This is the only time I'm giving you the luxury of opting out of a mission, agents. If you have any qualms about entering into a fandom without knowing _everything_ before hand, leave **now** while you have the chance."

Every single person remained rooted in their seats.

"Very well." Edwards turned to one of his aides and nodded to him.

A wheelchair, occupied by a struggling woman with penny red hair was wheeled in. She twisted in her seat and jerked against her restraints while snarling loudly and using language that would make a one eyed carpenter go red.

Lennon was gaping as she choked out a whispered, "Oh my God…that's _Beverly_."

"Agent Hopper," Commissioner Edwards motioned to Lennon's former horror fandom teammate, "Was a victim of the Angora Strain infection."

There were puzzled looks all around, but Edwards explained, "Several months ago, an experimental vaccine for certain bunny effects was tested. Agent Hopper was one of the volunteers. However, complications arose in the field. She was bitten by a shipper bunny."

"Bitten?" An agent near the front of the audience queried loudly.

"Yes. _Bitten_. We have yet to determine _why_ the animal went against it's own pattern of behavior--abandoning it's bow and arrow--but regardless of the whys and wherefores, the result was the same." Edwards looked stricken, "The vaccine reacted poorly with the undiluted bunny venom and mutated into a type of viral infection. The infection mutated further within the rabbit who bit Hopper."

Edwards nodded to another of his assistants and a small wire cage was wheeled into the room, this one containing a rather nasty looking dark, _dark_ maroon bunny. It's beady black eyes flashed dangerously, rage emanating from it's tiny, fluffy form.

"The rabbits began to multiply at an incredible rate, passing on the mutation…eventually making the infection part of their genetic make-up. The resulting breed is what you see here."

"How is that possible?" An indignant bellow came from the audience, "That science seems _far_ from sound!"

Edwards merely pointed upwards indicating…someone high above their little universe…and the horde of agents grumbled collectively in instant understanding.

"The Angora Strain, which is what our scientists have taken to calling the mutation, is different than any other plot bunny we're acquainted with. They seem to be an extreme form of Shipper bunny--a mixture of lust _and_ fluff. Not only do their effects _last_ but we haven't found a treatment for them yet. Furthermore, they can manipulate their surroundings to a certain extent." Edwards looked at the assembly soberly, "And they're spreading faster than amnesia bunnies."

There was a series of loud gasps throughout the hall and one muffled scream, which Edwards pointedly ignored.

"The only people who seem to be immune to the venom of an Angora Strain bunny is someone who has already been shipped…but even _then_, the Angora's powers can manifest themselves. Strange romance related happenings have been reported all over the base by agents who have been shipped in the past--"

Charlotte looked at Lennon as they both flashed back to the radio that belted out 'I Think I Love You' without a power source.

"Ladies and gentlemen, something must be done about this before not only the fandoms are overrun, but _our_ reality as well."


	8. Thud

Lennon leaned her head to one side and let her neck pop back into proper alignment as Charlotte finished tightening the straps on her backpack.

"I don't know why they wanted us to come to the assembly...we can't head out into a fandom as a team of _two_ and we don't have time to train a new teammate."

"The number of agents who've been shipped is incredibly low, Lenny...you know that," Charlotte popped a cigar in her mouth and lit it up, "If only agents who've been shipped before are immune to the Angora Strain, then we're automatically in. Me for Lorne and you for Langly...it's on record, after all."

"Hey, me and Langly had nothing to do with a shipper bunny, thank you very much," Lennon retorted, setting a new clip into place in her nine millimeter. "We fell for each other the old fashioned way."

"Yeah, over a game of D&D," Charlotte wiggled her eyebrows at Lennon, "Or so you say."

"Oh shut up." Lennon slipped into her backpack's straps and hefted the weight up, trying not to lose her balance in the process. "Where do you think they'll send us first?"

"Nowhere yet--one of Edwards' aides said we've been called for a private meeting with the commisioner."

Lennon let out a long suffering sigh. "Oh fantastic...what'd I do wrong _this_ time?"

"Nothing as far as I know. I think he's assigning us a new teammate, personally."

"And after _that_?"

"After that I figure they'll send us to one of the fandoms we're most familiar with...you know, one where we spent a lot of time." Charlotte shifted her pack and looked at her watch, "C'mon...we'll be late if we don't hussle."

Following the redhead out of the equipment storage room, Lennon struggled to catch up, "Fandoms we've spent a lot of time in...uh...well, there's the X-Files...we were stuck _there_ for a month."

"Team thirty two is handling that one," Charlotte said, "And Highlander."

Lennon let out a sigh of relief, "Oh...well, that's good. I don't think I'd be able to set foot in the either 'verse again anyways after...well, you know."

"Forty nine is handling Star Wars, Star Trek and all of it's spin offs." Charlotte turned a corner and continued down the corridor leading to Commisioner Edwards' office, "And the Buffyverse is being taken care of by Sebastian and his team."

"Buffyverse, X-Files, Highlander, Star Wars and Star Trek...those _are_ all the ones we spent the most time in. What's left?" Lennon stopped walking suddenly as the obvious hit her like a brick to the head, "Crap. We're going back to Stargate, aren't we?"

"Probably."

Lennon made a little whining noise, "Do we _have_ to?"

"I thought you _liked_ it there, Len." Charlotte turned to look at Lennon, "I mean, you practically jumped McKay on the way out..._and_ you went back."

The geek's eyes got wide, "Who told you?"

Charlotte looked at her comrade, "Nobody...I just suspected. Thanks for confirming my suspicions."

Lennon glared at her superior officer, "You...you...you--"

"Know you too well?"

The only reply Charlotte got was a grumbling noise as Lennon swept past her and towards the door marked 'Commisioner Edwards'.

"Let's just get this over with and get goin', huh? I wanna know who Edwards is sticking us with before I--"

The door swung open and both Lennon and Charlotte stood gaping at the occupant who was there to greet them.

"Hi," the petite brunette in the doorway said brightly with a cheerful smile.

Lennon took one look at her former deceased teammate and fainted dead away.


	9. The Ice Queen

"Lenny!"

Something was slapping her face and Lennon swatted it away absently.

"Lennon, Lenny! COME ON!"

Whack, whack, whack.

"Would you knock it the hell off?" The geek squawked, coming back to consciousness in one fell swoop.

With consciousness came the last thing she remembered before passing out.

"Oh my God!" Lennon sprang up from the floor suddenly with a screech, "Madison! Where is she?"

Commissioner Edwards' office was empty, except for Lennon, Charlotte and the commissioner himself.

"What are you talking about, Lenny?" Charlotte exchanged a worried look with Edwards.

"Madison!" Lennon exclaimed, flailing her hands, "She was here! You saw her! You MUST have!"

Charlotte's eyes went wide and she carefully touched Lennon's shoulder. "Lennon, Madison is _dead_."

Lennon turned her crazed eyes on her commanding officer. "Don't look at me like I've flipped a fruit loop! I saw her! She was here! Standing in that doorway real as you or I! Stop touching me like that! Stop trying to calm me down! I'm not crazy! Madison's alive! I saw her, God damn it!"

Charlotte slapped Lennon abruptly, the stinging blow knocking her glasses askew and causing her cheeks to flush, half from the slap and half from embarrassment as she came back to herself.

"Lennon, you saw Madison die. _You_ gave the report. She was _beheaded_. You don't just walk away from a blow like that."

Lennon shook herself and squeezed her eyes shut, "Charlie, I _saw_ her. I **saw** her. I heard her. She was right there." The geek pointed at the now closed door. "She was right _there_."

The only man in the room cleared his throat noisily. "I didn't think the effects of the Angora Strain would spread quite this quickly."

Lennon spun on her heel to stare at the commanding officer to end all commanding officers, "You're telling me I was _hallucinating_?"

"Tell me," Neil Edwards said calmly, stepping out from behind his modestly sized mahogany desk, "Have you experienced any _other_ strange phenomenon over the past few weeks? Missing a ship, perhaps? Strange dreams? Inexplicable happenings?"

Lennon's brain shifted into warp drive. "The radio…and I..I _have_ been missing Ro-" she stopped mid-word and covered her gaffe, "I've been missing Ringo…"

That particular lie hurt. To say she was missing the _dead_ love of her life when she was really missing a 'ship with Rodney McKay…

Oh that smarts.

And felt a little bit like a betrayal…

After all, she had actually considered--

Never mind…that chapter of From The Files Of The Plot Bunny Busters hasn't been completed yet…no sense spoiling it for everybody…

Coming back to the present, Lennon saw the identical looks of concern that Commissioner Edwards and Charlotte Walker wore.

"The virus is spreading much faster than we originally anticipated," Edwards said angrily, "If _you're_ being affected and you haven't been in a fandom since your return to the agency…it's only a matter of time before every agent--both in _and_ out of the fandoms--has it."

He shifted himself behind his desk once more and rifled around in the paperwork that was there, "I hate to send you into a fandom in your current state, Fisk, but since the reserves of agents who've been shipped before is so small, I'm afraid I have no choice."

"Surely you can find someone else to send," Charlotte said, showing the real worry that she was feeling for the first time, "If Lennon is in this condition, it's not going to be long before I am too. _And_ we don't have a third teammate. We're more likely to be liabilities than advantages in this mission."

"Shut up, Charlotte," Lennon snapped suddenly, "We both know we're some of the best the agency's got…to _not_ send us would be irresponsible."

Edwards looked up from the paperwork on his desk, "That's very true, Agent Fisk…but that doesn't mean I like sending anyone out there right now."

"Hey, he's got half a brain," Lennon said thoughtfully, before realizing what she'd just uttered, "Uh…I mean.."

"I know what you mean, Fisk…I am _well_ aware of my predecessor's reckless behavior when he was in office. I'll take 'He's got half a brain' as a compliment in this situation." Edwards finally found the file folder he'd been rummaging for and handed it over to Charlotte, "But back to the topic at hand. Now while I may not be able to do anything about the effects you'll both have to endure from the Angora Strain, I _can_ do something about your not having a third teammate."

A knock sounded at the commissioner's door and he glanced at Lennon and Charlotte, "That'll be her now. Come in!"

The door swung open and the severe looking platinum blonde who entered seemed to radiate a chill that cooled the air around her. Her flashing blue eyes sparkled like chips of ice and she stared down from her height of five foot eleven at the two Bunny Busters from over the edge of her sharp nose.

She wasn't pretty in the traditional sense, but she was certainly striking.

Both Lennon and Charlotte spoke simultaneously, though Lennon's epithet was a bit less complimentary than Charlotte's almost reverent whisper of the blonde agent's surname.

"The Ice Queen."

"Touchstone."


	10. The Cold Shoulder

To say that Veruca Touchstone's reputation preceded her was a gross understatement.

She was as notorious in the annals of APBA history as Lennon and Charlotte were, though for completely different reasons.

Where Lennon and Charlotte were famous for their recklessness and disregard for the rules with spectacular results; Veruca was famous for her cold, disaffected manner and her strict adherence to all APBA codes and regulations without fail.

Even with her need to keep to the strictest of codes, she was one of the only agents with a higher bunny kill rate than Charlotte and she was also the one with a reputation for being cool as the arctic in a crisis.

Which was obvious to anyone who laid eyes on the woman. She meant _business_, no doubt about _that_.

Touchstone's posture was always rigid and precise, her eyes hard and cold, and she was rarely seen socializing with anyone in or out of the APBA. Her voice never wavered and her clothing was always in perfect pressed and tailored order. Where other agents could be seen bumming around the base in t-shirts and jeans--indeed, in the case of a select few, within the fandoms (Lennon cough, cough)--she was never anything but the absolute picture of professionalism, from her patent leather heels (which lent questions about how she managed to run chasing bunnies in them without falling on her face) to her tightly controlled hair that was never seen out of a perfect bun.

It was these personality and physical traits that gained her the nickname of 'The Ice Queen' and while revered by many agents for her impeccable record, she was scorned by the majority because of her lack of flexibility within the fandoms.

And out of them.

The rules were the rules were the rules. There was no way of getting around that, in her opinion.

Splitting the awkward silence that had accompanied her arrival, the commissioner cleared his throat loudly. "Agent Touchstone, these are your new teammates. Lennon Fisk, technology division; Charlotte Walker, your new CO."

Touchstone merely inclined her head by way of greeting, just as calm as ever.

"Agent Touchstone," Charlotte said in her best commanding officer voice as she got up from her seat and offered the frigid woman her outstretched hand. "Your record precedes you, it'll be a pleasure to work with you."

Touchstone looked down her nose as Charlotte without taking her hand.

Despite Touchstone's carefully schooled air of indifference, there was a bitter bite to her tone when she spoke. "I wish I were as optimistic as you are, Commander Walker, but your record precedes _you_."

The green eyes of the Busters Commander flashed momentarily before her ruffled feathers settled back into place and she withdrew her offered hand.

An insult to her professionalism, no matter how veiled, was still an insult. Charlotte was a damn good agent, regardless of her occasional habit of bending the rules.

This meant _war_.

Charlotte smiled pleasantly. "Then I assume, if you're so well acquainted with my record--and that of my partner--that you know we are a dangerous pair."

It bordered on being a threat yet didn't quite cross the line into legally actionable territory.

Still, it didn't take a genius to read between the lines of the tense words that had just been traded between the two strong willed women.

Egos were going to clash and strength of character was bound to come into play on this mission.

The beginnings of a power struggle between the two had already occurred, hence why they stayed locked in each other's gaze--neither looking away--because everyone knows that if you stare you opponent down, the one who looks away first is the one who will not emerge victorious.

Anyone who's ever had a staring contest with a cat knows this is true. Make the cat look away, you've gained his respect…he makes _you_ look away, he'll know your will is weaker than his.

The silence grew to an uncomfortable length and Lennon cleared her throat hastily, knowing that if Touchstone pushed the wrong button, she'd find herself in the midst of the worst cat fight in recent history.

"Now that the introductions are taken care of..." Lennon winced, knowing that this change in topic was bound to be a costly one...for _her_ at least. "I think we should get going, don't you?"

"Quite right, Lennon," Charlotte said, her eyes never coming unlocked from Touchstone's ice blue ones. "We're heading out."

With that, Touchstone broke her gaze with Charlotte and brushed past her and out of the office.

"Do try and keep up, will you?" She tossed back over her shoulder, "Teammates or not, I won't tolerate stragglers."

Charlotte and Lennon traded a glance between them that spoke silent volumes.

The rookies might have been bad, but it was crystal clear that Touchstone was going to be _trouble_.


	11. Glomped! Again!

Rodney McKay paced back and forth in the gate room, the small communication device that Lennon had left with Weir firmly in one hand.

The thing had been beeping for close to two minutes and his patience was wearing dangerously thin.

There were bunnies on the loose...he'd actually caught sight of one on _base_ earlier, and though it had been killed immediately by Major Lorne, just because one was visible didn't mean there weren't _others_ waiting in the wings.

How that particular little maroon bunny had managed to get to the city, no one was certain, but there it was...and now it was nothing more than a bloody smear on the mess hall floor, being cleaned up by a biohazard team.

Beckett said there was no point taking chances, after all. They didn't know what possible side effects that contact with 'Bunny Bits' could conceivably have, so better safe than sorry.

Of course, that did little to quiet Rodney's rapidly unravelling nerves. The insistant beep. Beep. BEEP. from the communication device wasn't helping either.

What he hated most of all was the fact that his desperate pacing in front of the gate had more to do with seeing Lennon again than it did with squashing the rising plot bunny menace.

He didn't know what had come over him...he just suddenly _missed_ her _terribly_. It was like a horrible ache in his chest that wouldn't go away unless she was there to soothe it.

Carson assured him he didn't have a brain tumor or a fever already, so Rodney could only assume that this was brought on by some bunny effects that he wasn't aware of.

All the more reason to--

"Incoming traveller!"

"Finally!" McKay exclaimed as the Stargate kawooshed to life, tucking the communicator in his pocket and smoothing his hair unconsciously.

The first one through the gate was a blonde that Rodney didn't recognize, followed shortly by Charlotte and then finally by Lennon.

While under ordinary circumstances, he would have given the statuesque blonde the once over more than once, when the object of his infatuation stepped through the gate, it was all he could do to stand still.

Every nerve ending in his body was suddenly on the alert, and all of his willpower went towards keeping him from flying at her to kiss her senseless.

But his resolve crumbled when she flashed him a grin, innocently said "Hi, Rodney." and winked at him.

Rodney McKay didn't think he could move as fast as he did when she winked, because before he realized what was happening, he'd pounced on her.

The last thing Lennon managed to say before McKay glomped her was a very eloquent: "Rodn--MMPH!"


	12. Complications Arise

With all of Rodney McKay's weight sending her crashing into the floor, forcing her back to make a very unhealthy CRUNCH! noise when it smushed her backpack beneath her (there went her freshly packed bag of crinkle cut potato chips), she had very little time to process what had just happened before his lips sloppily collided with hers and he started kissing the life out of her.

Her first thought was something along the lines of: "What the hell?"

Promptly followed by: "Wow, I forgot what a good kisser he is…"

And then came the ever popular oxygen-deprivation-through-kissing sentiment: "Yowza!"

Charlotte and Touchstone (Techie wasn't yet comfortable calling her by her first name; the character had a bit of growing to do before that particular honor was to be bestowed upon her) glanced at each other in confusion before they descended on Rodney, pulling at his shoulders and yanking him off their teammate.

Lennon just continued to lie on the gate room floor, eyes slightly glazed as she stared at the ceiling, doing her level best to struggle her way back through the haze of plot bunny induced lust that had just settled over her brain like so much London fog.

Rodney, meanwhile, came to his senses much before she did, and recoiled in horror, realizing what he'd just done.

"What the HELL is wrong with you, McKay?" Charlotte asked angrily, grabbing him by both shoulders and shaking him violently.

He couldn't answer. Partly because his lips were still busy processing all the sensory information that accompanied smooching his 'ship (and _what_ a smooch!), and partly because his brain was just as lust addled as Lennon's was.

While Charlotte slapped Rodney around, Touchstone knelt next to Lennon and grabbed her hand, pulling her forcefully up off the floor. "Still with us, Fisk?"

Lennon blinked--it didn't escape Touchstone's notice that it was with one eyelid at a time--before a slightly cavewoman-esque growl came from her throat that sounded something like "Fine."

"You don't _look_ fine," Charlotte said, releasing a still slightly muddled Rodney to turn and stare at her companion, "You look like you've been through an explosion."

"I always look this way!" Lennon defended, the last of her brain boggled side effects dissipating with the insult.

Rodney had turned six different shades of red during this exchange and Lennon wasn't faring much better as Elizabeth Weir made her way down the gate room steps to greet the Bunny Busters. "Welcome back."

In reply, Lennon grumbled, Touchstone quirked an eyebrow and Charlotte extended her hand to the expedition leader which was taken and shaken briefly.

"I take it they're already here then," Touchstone said without ceremony. "Doctor McKay's reaction wouldn't have been as...ahem 'vigorous' if they weren't."

"They? The bunnies, you mean?" Weir asked.

"No you dope, the Beatles, _yes_ the bunnies," Lennon sniped, fully coming back to herself as she brushed her t-shirt off.

"Lenny," Charlotte said dangerously, her tone laced with a reprimand and a warning all in one. "Keep your tongue."

"I'm tryin'," Lennon defended, waving a hand at McKay, "But mister suck face over there nearly relieved me of it!"

At this, Rodney turned a most unbecoming shade of violet and Touchstone poked him in the chest to force him to take a breath.

He slapped her hand away viciously as he gasped and then started talking a mile a minute. "What took you so long? Where've you been? Who's _she_--" he pointed at Touchstone, "Why're the bunnies back? Why did I glomp you? **What's going on**? I thought you said this whole disaster was over with! We wiped out all the rabbits--now there's MORE! WHY?! I demand to know! NOW!"

"Rodney," Lennon said sweetly, turning to him to bat her eyes at him provocatively. "**SHUT THE HELL UP!**"

"That's odd," Charlotte said, watching at Lennon and Rodney continued to argue in voices so loud they could have conceivably caused permanent ear drum damage. "Kissing one minute, fighting the next..."

"Most irregular," Touchstone agreed, one eyebrow lifted slightly higher than the other.

"I don't think irregular even begins to cover it, Veruca,"

"Bunny effects?" Touchstone inquired. "I have heard that the Angora Strain can cause irrational behavior..."

"WE'RE NOT IRRATIONAL!" Both Lennon and McKay screeched in unison, turning on Touchstone angrily.

"He started it!" Lennon pointed accusingly, while Rodney echoed the sentiment with the same body language. "She did!"

"I did not, you did!" The turned to shout in each other's faces.

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did!"

Weir was rubbing her forehead in despair and Charlotte had smacked a hand over her face. "Perhaps we should take this elsewhere, Doctor Weir?"

"I'd suggest a boxing ring," Touchstone said smartly. "They're sure to come to blows eventually...we could charge admission."

"Why don't we all adjourn to a conference room?" Weir asked, completely ignoring Touchstone's rare show of good humor.

---

Twenty minutes later found the three Bunny Busters, Doctors Weir and McKay along with Colonel Sheppard all in a conference room, going over what had happened since the first bunny had been spotted. McKay and Lennon weren't speaking to each other, their chairs turned slightly away from each other.

Things had gone from bad to worse at the conference table as Lennon and McKay's bickering went from old-married-couple to two-year-old-screaming-match and back again three times as the story of the bunny on planet MU0-84LL was told.

Lennon immediately declared that going to the planet to eradicate the source of the problem was, no doubt, their best course of action.

McKay, naturally, disagreed, stating that their first priority was the protection of the base.

And thusly began a whole _new_ argument, leaving Charlotte to bash her head on the conference table in frustration.

"Tell _him_ I don't _care_. We have a job to do and we're going to do it," Lennon stated, nose upturned and looking as haughty as she possibly could. "We're going to that planet."

"Tell _her_ we can't just run off all willy-nilly without a plan--"

"He wasn't thinking in terms of _plans_ when he **glomped** me in the gate room!"

"I didn't glomp her, I...I...I was just--"

"Under the effects of the Angora Strain," Touchstone said simply, glancing at her nails. "And in order to kill the strain in this universe, we've got to go to the source."

McKay tried to interrupt, but Touchstone stopped him. "And like it or not, that means going back to that planet. I'm sure," Touchstone turned to speak to Sheppard, "that your troops can keep things under control, now that they know what they're dealing with. A few stray bunnies here on base are nothing in comparison to the horde that've probably overtaken the planet."

"I hate to say it," Lennon began, eyebrows furrowing, "But she does have a point. We need to get to that planet and start clearing it out."

"As well as any _other_ planets that the bunnies have managed to infiltrate," Charlotte added, pausing her head banging temporarily.

"But that could take...oh God, Charlotte, that could take years!" Lennon exclaimed, thumping her fist on the table. "We don't have that kind of time!"

"Especially with the way the bunny effects are intensifying," Touchstone put in, gesturing between Lennon and McKay. "It won't be long before those two are going at it like rabbits whether they want to or not."

McKay's eyes bugged out of his head and he sputtered. "That would never happen! We have more self control than _that_!"

"Oh _really_ Mister Make-Out?" Lennon said scathingly with an air of snobbishness that Charlotte had never seen in her before.

"Oh that is IT!" He leapt up from his chair, pointing at Lennon angrily. "You've got some nerve!

Lennon mirrored his actions perfectly. "Don't even start! You practically attacked me and you have the gall to talk about self control?"

He took a step towards her, fists at his sides, fingers clenching and unclenching. "I certainly didn't hear you complaining!"

She followed suit. "YOU didn't give me access to enough oxygen for me to even _attempt_ complaint!"

Another step forward. "Like you would've had time anyway. You were to busy shoving your tongue down my throat to try to complain!"

"Oh you are absolutely the most intolerable person I have _ever_ met!"

"The feeling is mutual!"

"OH! I just...I can't stand you!" She exclaimed.

"DITTO!"

And without any warning whatsoever, they leapt at each other, desperately trying to tear each other's clothes off.

The other stunned occupants of the room took several milliseconds to process what was going on before all of them grabbed hold of one of the two lust driven people and pulled them away from each other.

"Okay, WHOA!" Charlotte pulled at Lennon some more until she had her about three feet away from McKay. The geek was still struggling to get at McKay, and vice versa.

"What the hell is going on?" Sheppard asked, pinning McKay's arms behind his back and trying to hold him in place.

"Angora Strain. Stage Two: Uncontrollable Sexual Tension." Touchstone got an elbow to the ribs as she subdued Lennon but she merely grunted slightly. "I didn't think it would happen this quickly."

"You mean to tell me you _knew_ this would occur?" Weir asked.

"It's not been documented in every case, so I wasn't certain, but I suspected." Touchstone and Charlotte finally managed to cease Lennon's struggling. "I don't know what sped up the process, though. Usually it takes about three days for Stage Two to happen."

"What's stage three?" Sheppard inquired, holding on to Rodney, who had finally stopped fighting him, opting instead to breathe heavily and glare at Lennon.

Charlotte and Touchstone glanced at each other, worry in their eyes before speaking in unison. "Inseparability."

"Surely that can't have happened already, though...right?" Charlotte asked, swallowing thickly. "Stage Three takes even longer than Stage Two!"

"Whatever expeidiated the process between these two has clearly already skipped ahead a few paces...there's no telling how that would affect the speed between stages."

"Hold it, what's this inseperability thing about, anyways?" Sheppard regarded the two Bunny Busters, not liking the way they were looking between Lennon and McKay with such trepidation.

Charlotte grimaced. "It's like...an invisible tether between the two subjects. They can't be apart but for very short distances before The Madness starts to take over."

"And how many stages are there?"

"Three, that we know of," Touchstone answered. "Stage One is the desire to be together; Stage Two is the Uncontrollable Sexual Tension--and if the two are allowed enough skin on skin contact, it leads to Stage Three: The Inseperability."

"But...surely that can't have happened already," Lennon suddenly said, rather nervously. "I mean--"

"There's only one way to find out, now isn't there?" Charlotte nodded to Sheppard. "Take him outside...if he starts exhibiting any strange behavior--stranger than usual, that is--bring him right back." She reached into her pants pocket and withdrew a stopwatch, tossing it on the table. "And take note of the time. Give it five minutes...if nothing happens by then, we're still in the clear."

Still keeping a firm grip on the back of Rodney's shirt, Sheppard picked up the stopwatch and then dragged McKay outside into the corridor.

It took less than a minute for Lennon to start anxiously shifting from foot to foot, chewing her bottom lip until it was a bright shade of cherry red. Then her left eye started to twitch with surprising regularity--once every five point two seconds--and finally, when she hit the two minute mark, she...

Barked like a dog.

An answering howl out in the hallway, followed by Sheppard dragging McKay back inside was all the answer the other Bunny Busters needed.

"It's already started," Touchstone stated blandly. "They'll completely lose their minds if we don't keep them within five feet of each other. This puts quite a wrinkle in our plans to wipe out the bunny population on planet MU0-84LL."

Charlotte shook her head forlornly. "It looks like you're going to be coming with us, McKay."


	13. Legend Of The Drunken Lennon

If Lennon was an unhappy camper while the Bunny Busters prepared for their trip to planet MU0-84LL, then McKay was a miserable camper. Rodney was the camper who was chased by a horde of disgruntled bees, tripping over a tree root and then tumbled into a patch of poision ivy before finally coming face to face with a rattle snake the size of his head.

He detested the idea of this mission _that_ much.

Somewhere, he was happy to be with Lennon--some part of him that wasn't affected by the Angora Strain was happy about seeing her too (after all, they _had_ been shipped, 'feelings' were part of the deal)--but for the most part, he couldn't get over what a horrible fate awaited him in the not-too-distant future. The only positive part of this that he could figure out was that at least this time around he had _some_ idea of what he was going to be going up against; unlike the first Plot Bunny invasion, this time he wasn't flying completely blind, all alone in a world gone mad.

This time he had two seemingly capable professionals and one madwoman on his side.

Joy.

Never mind the fact that as she was slithering into the straps of his backpack, he couldn't keep his eyes off said escaped insane asylum patient; that was _far_ from the point...

Boy she had pretty eyes behind those glasses. Why didn't she wear contact more---

Wait...what was his point again?

Oh, right. This was insane.

And he told everyone as much.

"This is insane!" Rodney exclaimed, not caring if anyone listened to him or not (he just wanted to rant). "We shouldn't be heading out there alone!"

"Rodney, relax," Lennon said sedately (not much of a feat considering that Beckett _had_ sedated her to keep her from tearing Rodney limb from limb in her bunny induced haze or irrationality).

"Relax, she says. Relax, relax!" He squeaked. "Easy for you to say, you're pumped full of Xanax!"

"Don't knock it, bub," Lennon said with a dopey grin. "This is _way_ better than those Wonderland mushrooms."

"You spent three hours watching your hand move, as I recall," Charlotte stated, checking the clip in her nine millimeter.

"Three hours well spent." Lennon nodded, more to herself than to anyone else as she swayed slightly.

"Do you really think it's a good idea to go into the field while she's under the influence, Walker?" Touchstone asked, one eyebrow quirked.

Charlotte waved her hand dismissively. "She'll be fine. I've seen her hit a target from three hundred feet when she was smashed before. Once the initial effects wear off a little, she'll be shooting straighter than either of us will be."

"I are the drunken master," Lennon said, suddenly grinning for no reason. "You think I suddenly have an astoundingly masterful grasp of Kung Fu?"

"God I hope not," Charlotte muttered, securing her pack in place.

The geek raised one foot, knee level with her waist while putting her arms above her head and keeping her fingers poised in a graceful manner. "Check me out, who am I?"

"An idiot," Touchstone and Charlotte said in unison.

Lennon hopped up and down. "No, no, seriously, who am I?"

"A really _big_ idiot."

"I'm Jackie Chan!" And she bounced on one foot all the way through the stargate with her long suffering teammates trailing behind.

Sheppard and Lorne, who had watched this entire exchange in disbelief, glanced at each other.

"And these are the people we're trusting our fates to?"

"We're screwed, aren't we?"

"Royally."


	14. Does This Count As Lying By Omission?

Hopping on one foot might be fun on solid ground, but on mud, it's not such a good idea. Less than three hops from the gate, Lennon sank up to her ankle in sludge, lost her balance and fell face first into the mud.

McKay, naturally, thought this was the funniest thing that'd happened all day and cackled accordingly.

Catching him off guard, Lennon started laughing as well. At first he thought it was the effects of the tranquilizer pumping through her veins, but she came up from the muck, chuckling and wiping the mud off her face. "Don't tell me you bought it _too_," she said, standing up without a single hint of a wobble in her gait.

She was completely sober.

"I can't believe that actually _worked_," Touchstone said, shaking her head.

"Told you it would," Lennon said smugly, fishing a towel out of her pack--mercifully a plain one--and wiping off the last of the mud.

McKay was confused. "What...you mean you weren't stoned?"

Charlotte let out a bark of a laugh. "Of course not."

"Then why--"

"No imagination at all, I swear, McKay," Lennon said with a touch of disappointment in her voice. "The more incompetent they think we are, the more aggressively they'll keep an eye on Atlantis' bunny populace. If they think we'll always swoop in and play the heroes, where will we be?"

Charlotte laughed at McKay's bewilderment before sobering. "Alright people. Enough playin' around. McKay, which way was it that you saw the first bunny?"

McKay stood still, thoughtful for a moment before he pointed to the west. "That way."

"Right then," Charlotte gestured for Lennon to travel on her left side and Touchstone on her right with McKay at _her_ side. The more distance they kept between the two shipped people, the better--but not enough to make them go insane.

Not that they were all that close to perfectly sane to begin with, but best not make the problem worse, yes?

The going was slow and the scenery was nonexistant, and if that wasn't bad enough, every few minutes someone's ankle got sucked into the mud and the other three had to pull them free.

"Have I mentioned yet that I hate mud?" Lennon asked conversationally as she stared at the miles and miles of muddy landscape stretched in front of her.

"Only once every two minutes, Lenny," Charlotte replied, pulling her shoe out of the sludge beneath her forcefully, almost losing her balance in the process. "Is there anything in this place _other_ than mud, McKay?"

"There's a village a ways up but--"

THUNK.

"What was..." Lennon glanced around. "What was that?"

**SPLASH!**

All four people's eyes suddenly widened as ominous music started to float over the wind and Lennon blanched.

"No. No horror bunnies. God, please no horror bunnies."

Thud. Shluck. Thunk. Flack.

The music intensified, forcing a shiver to slither down Charlotte's spine. It was like this the first time around...

There was an 'Argughah!' noise and the four companions turned to see an army of eight foot tall, lumbering mud men.

They'd come out of nowhere and were advancing insanely fast on the Bunny Busters' position.

"Rodney?"

McKay went ashen. "Did I mention the mud people? I think I neglected to mention the mud people."


	15. I Shouldn't Watch Zombie Movies Anymore

"Should we run?"

"Gee, I don't know, eight foot men made of mud with their arms outstretched in the stereotypical zombie signal for 'Yum! Fresh brains!'...why would we need to _run_?"

One of the mud men grabbed hold of his forearm and tore his whole arm out of its socket, wielding it like a club with all the determination one would expect from a mindless mud zombie.

Lennon looked like she was going to be ill. "He's going to try and beat us to death with one of his own arms. Oh yeah, _that's_ not worrying at all."

Another mud man grabbed his knee and tore his leg off before throwing it at the Bunny Busters, where it landed at Touchstone's feet with a sickening thud. She didn't flinch--a slight widening of the eyes was her only reaction--but considering what a cool customer she was to begin with, that was the equivalent of a hysterical scream.

A hand hit in front of Charlotte--one with a mind of its own--because it started crawling towards her, making squeaky little "Blibbityblah!" noises the whole way. She shot off two of its fingers, which only made the strange disembodied hand language come out sounding a little bit angrier.

"Just our luck," Charlotte said with a gulp. "We had to get an author who's seen the Evil Dead trilogy."

The limb losing thing wasn't a big deal to the mud men, apparently, because every time they tore off an arm or leg, the mud beneath their feet stretched upwards to join their bodies, reforming the lost appendage in moments.

"Oh God," Lennon murmured, looking rather green around the gills. "She modeled them on Clayface, Romero Zombies and the Black Knight."

"So running is the most expedient solution?"

"Of course it is...we've only been standing here this long so that the illustrious author could get some good solid gory monster description in, that's all."

A torso slammed into the mud in front of Charlotte and when _it_ started trying to wriggle in her direction, her voice shot up a register and a half. "Point taken! Hit the pavement!"

Which, of course, was merely slang for 'Run like hell'.

And that's _exactly_ what they did...

But, unbeknownst to them, in the direction they were running was an even more fearsome foe than the flesh eating, indestructible mud men. A threat so terrible, so unmentionable, so _horrifying_ that the Bunny Busters had no idea just what tortures there were in store for them.

Now if only Techie knew what this new threat _was_...


	16. The Villain Of Our Story

Twenty miles from the gate in a land of perpetual night, where shadows crept along the surface of the ground like living, breathing beings, a cluster of regal oak trees stood.

Regal but for the fact that they were all dead and shriveled, without their leaves and their gray roots cutting into the rocky soil in the surrounding area.

If one were to dare venture inside this fortress of trees and boulders, and had the stomach to continue walking with the crunch, crunch, crunch of long deceased leaves under foot, and could stand the little sharply tilted green eyes that popped up in the dark every so often, one would find that this place--whatever it was--had the aura of evil seeping through it.

From the slate colored grass to the black wilted poppies along the shattered stone path, there was no denying that this was every horror movie maker's dream shooting location.

The wind took to howling every few seconds the deeper you wandered into the forest, the naked tree branches serving as the perfect instruments for the wind to slither through, causing a symphony of dreadful music to play, from the hooting of restless owls to the scuttling noises along the ground; all of the sounds playing in tandem to make a soundtrack that spelled certain doom.

Now, if one managed to get that far into the forest without their heart growing feint and their belly turning yellow, they would find themselves in the midst of a dark, gloomy miasma, thick and toxic to those unprepared to meet it. Unlike the fog of a Sue lair, this atmosphere was ash gray and was so thick that when the wind moved, you could watch the fog as it shimmered in the air. Small dust particles that changed their color in the light accompanied the fog, and if you tried to walk amongst them, you would find that they swarmed to your body like bloody thirsty mosquitoes, seeking out whatever bare flesh was readily available. These tiny dust particles were in actuality small living beings, on strict orders from the ruler of this black and dead patch of land to attack with vigor any one or anything that tried to breech the miasma.

If you survived the little evil dust sized minions and the miasma didn't cause you to pass out from its sheer toxicity, you would have to cross the river of green goo which was, guess what, totally toxic.

Really, was it any wonder all the surrounding plants were dead?

Once you made it over the river, and provided you still had all your limbs attached, you would find that the dense forest parted into an open field about forty feet square.

There, in the clearing, the gloom that had hung so heavily in the air up till then parted to reveal a checkerboard lawn--made from square patches of dead lilies and dead black orchids--stood a black and twisted throne made from shining ebony.

And upon that throne sat the most vicious foe that the Bunny Busters were ever likely to meet...

Joe: King Of Amnesia Bunnies, a sleek, black human-sized rabbit, whose mere existence had caused the creation of an entire _universe_.

Joe, whose plans for galaxy-wide domination started with the Angora Strain Infection...

Joe, who was organizing his maroon bunny armies right then...

Joe, who held Comicus the Muse captive in an electrified black iron cage miles from his current location.

Joe, who _also_ held the resurrected Madison hostage.

Needless to say, Joe was one bad mother--

"Shut your mouth," Joe growled at the heavens angrily as he yanked on the lead that was attached to a chain collar wrapped around Madison's throat, who was, at that very moment, chained to the left side of the throne.

"You won't get away with this, you know," Madison said, only to be cut off by another jerk to the leash.

"_Spare me_," he replied in boredom.

"But you won't!"

She made a few strangling noises when he drew up to his full height--an intimidating eight feet tall--but the strangling wasn't due to fear; no, it was due to the fact he'd pulled at the leash again, making the collar go so tight that her eyes bulged.

"Silence!" He bellowed. "You presume to tell _me_ what I can and cannot do? Ha! **I** am king of amnesia bunnies! Were it not for me, you and your precious APBA wouldn't even exist!"

He tugged the leash again. "I am the catalyst which set into motion all the events that led up to your very creation!"

"If you're so important," Madison said from around a heaving gasp, "Why weren't you in the _first_ story?"

"Ha! Foolish Bunny Buster!" He mocked. "Everyone knows you save your best villain until last. The Antis and the Sues were _nothing_ in comparison to yours truly."

Joe leaned over Madison, dark, glittering eyes glinting dangerously in the half light and, despite the absurdity of the situation, she found herself shrinking away from the evil rabbit. "I am the darkest foe you and your _friends_ will ever know…and come hell or high water, I _will_ rule this universe with an iron fist."


	17. Our Second Complication

_Meanwhile (been awhile since we've had one of those...)_

Things were not all sunshine and lollipops at the Muse's Syndicate, nor had they been in a long, _long_ time. For one thing, the usual Muse's strike was going on (there wasn't a day that went by when there wasn't a picket line in front of the Syndicate building, to be honest; there was always one muse or another who was dissatisfied with their job and felt they had to tell someone about it through the time honored method of big neon cardboard signs and rhythmic chanting), and this one was bigger than usual.

Miraculously, Arca and Caesar, who had been minor players in the last Plot Bunny Saga had managed to escape their sentence of having their tangibility taken away and were now on desk duty until further notice.

Cupcake hadn't been so lucky. She was nothing more than a big ball of bluish energy now.

But on the plus side, big balls of bluish energy can't wield shotguns or drink Romulan Ale.

Or wield shotguns _after_ drinking Romulan Ale, which was something that led to certain disaster.

However, with Cupcake out of the picture, it was up to Arca and Caesar to take up the Atlantis muse mantels for awhile. They were knee deep in paperwork, currently, trying to keep all the storylines straight that Cupcake had helped to inspire.

"Why are there so many Sues in this 'verse?" Arca asked irritably, crumpling up a sheet of bright pink paper that was the beginnings of the inspiration for a 'Child of Sam and Jack goes back in time' story.

"The same reason there are so many Sues everywhere else." Caesar replied easily, also crumpling a note--this one lavender in color, indicating that it was the beginning of a purple prose tale.

"Hormones? Rampant escapism? Fantasies run amok?"

"Well look who's been reading her Muse's handbook for a change," he answered without looking up from his work.

"It's part of my punishment." Arca crinkled up her nose. "I have to read that thing cover to cover thirty times and then take a _test_."

"No worse than having to spend time in the archives, inspiring people to start revising like mad." Caesar also scrunched up his face in distaste. "A bad story is still a _bad_ story when it undergoes revisions, you know. I just make them go from 'crap' to 'semi-crap'."

Arca blew out a breath, ruffling her carrot colored curls as she did so. "Well, I'm done with my first stack of the day." She patted an inch high stack of papers in varying colors--each corresponding to an idea type. "I'm going to go turn them in."

"Give me a minute and I'll come with you." Caesar got out of his chair, trying not to trip over his toga, which had gotten hung up underneath one of the char legs and very nearly caused him to hit the ground as a result.

"Smooth."

"You should see me dance."

"I don't think I want to."

Caesar shrugged lightly before he picked up his own stack of strangely colored documents. "Shall we?"

The office that Caesar and Arca shared was very small and they barely managed to squeeze out the door without knocking anything over before they set off for their supervisor's work station.

Comicus' office was situated about ten feet from their office door, standing out against the traditional Greek architecture by being bright red plastic with a chrome knob and a small window set into the door, which had the words "Comicus: Head Muse In Charge, Comedy Division" scrawled across it.

Caesar reached the office door first and knocked politely.

This was the difference between Caesar and Arca. She wouldn't have bothered to knock, opting instead to just burst through the door, regardless of what might have been going down on the other side.

There was no answer.

Caesar knocked again and waited.

Still nothing.

He glanced at his companion warily before reaching out to try the door knob, finding it unlocked and it swung in easily with a gentle push.

Caesar dared to venture a footstep and a half inside, though he didn't dare go any further for fear of retribution for breaking into the office of a superior.

Besides, there was very little light to be found in the small space…one false step would find him flat on his back or with a broken toe from running into the old man's desk.

"Comicus?" Caesar called. "Comicus!"

Arca poked her head inside and groped around for a light switch, finally finding it and flicking it into the 'on' position. "He's not here?"

"Doesn't look like it."

"Score!" Arca started back out the door. "Three day weekend!"

"Hold it!" Caesar caught Arca by the scruff of the toga and dragged her back into Comicus' empty office.

"What?" She asked in a whine so high pitched she sounded like something akin to a Chihuahua .

"Does something smell fishy about this to you?"

Arca sniffed the air. "Now that you mention it…I smell…tuna."

"That isn't funny."

"Sure it is."

"Arca, this is serious," Caesar admonished. "Comicus isn't at work!"

"So? He's only got two weeks until his retirement commences _anyways_, maybe he just cut out early? You know, to get a head start on the whole rest and relaxation thing?"

"I highly doubt," Caesar began, reaching to pick up a tattered piece of parchment on Comicus' desk, "that he would have left a ransom note."

"If he wanted a plausible alibi, he might," Arca said, snapping her fingers dismissively.

Caesar waved the paper under Arca's nose. "Signed with a paw print?"

-

A/N: Hey, hey, hey! Guess who found a plot? Guess who'll be updating this thing daily as a result? Guess who's been sucked back into the APBA 'verse?

Me?

...golly you're good at guessing games.


	18. The Complications Just Keep On A'Comin'

_Running back over here now..._

When last we left our four intrepid heroes, an army of mud men were fast approaching them, defying all logic and every law of physics known to man by advancing on them at a frighteningly swift pace while still keeping up their zombie-like wobbling gaits. It was incredible really, how they kept dragging their feet and yet every time any of the people they were persuing glanced up they seemed to be even closer than before.

Clearly, this was the Law Of Reality Warping Zombie Pursuit (patent pending) at work. This law states in no uncertain terms that when being pursued by a zombie or other wobbly-walking monster the faster and further you run away from them, the closer they become.

The Bunny Busters were starting to feel like they were stuck in a hamster wheel while the mud men moved on unencumbered, breathing down their necks.

"This is ridiculous!" Charlotte panted, one hand pressed to her side in an effort to relieve the stitch that was quickly developing there. "Lenny! You did horror fandoms for years! What do we do?"

"Keep running until we find a place to hide!" A mud man arm landed in front of Lennon with a slap as it hit the surface of the planet and the geek gulped audibly. "Or...you know, until we find a bunch of high caliber weapons or military grade C4."

"I--" Rodney was gasping as he stumbled along behind the other three. "I don't think I can go on for much longer."

"Bite your tongue!" Lennon reprimanded him loudly. "We _are_ going to make it!"

"Our dear creator would never leave us in the lurch without _some_ means of escape, after all, we're the main characters in a _saga_," Touchstone shouted, failing at her attempt at subtlety spectacularly.

"Point taken, I'll do what I can," the all too familiar voice from the heavens proclaimed as a mist began to rise from the ground in front of the four.

"Bad weather?" Lennon screeched in disbelief. "All seeing, all powerful creator of this _universe_ and that's the _best_ you can do?"

"It's a minor atmospheric change, technically, not bad _weather_ per se." The voice was defensive.

"Semantics!" Lennon exclaimed as the mist grew thicker and darker. "We're staring death in the face and she wants to argue semantics!"

The voice was eerily silent and Lennon suddenly realized her error.

"I mean...I didn't mean it! Whatever you're planning, stop planning it!" Lennon waved her arms frantically. "STOP IT!"

But there was _still_ no answer and the mist got even _thicker_, so much so that the four people who had been running had to slow to an easy jog in order to find their way.

The air had grown heavy and oppressive, pressing in on all sides so hard that it filled the Bunny Busters with a horrible sense of foreboding.

"You had to talk back, didn't you?" McKay asked angrily, groping through the fog.

"Oh shut up, McKay and--" Lennon let out an uncharacteristically high pitched squeak. "WATCH WHAT YOU'RE GRABBING, MISTER!"

"Sorry!"

"No hanky panky, you two!" Charlotte scolded.

"There will be neither hanky nor panky on _my_ watch, Charlie!"

"Somehow I don't believe you," Touchstone put in. "Where _are_ all of you? I can't see a foot in front of my face."

"Oh no. Oh _no_," Lennon groaned. "Damn it!"

"What?" Charlotte called, sounding like she was very far away.

"Divide and conquer," Lennon replied, sounding equally distant to her commanding officer's ears. "What happens when everyone splits up in a horror movie?"

"Everyone dies one by one," Touchstone answered, having to shout lest her teammates not hear her.

"Exactly. And what's happening to _us_ right now?"

"We're being forcefully split up by this mist."

"You said a mouthful there, Lenny."

Silence greeted Charlotte's statement.

"Lenny?"

More silence.

"Touchstone? McKay?"

Even _more_ silence.

"Crap."


	19. Just Down The Street From Wonderland

Charlotte staggered along in the mist for several minutes, her hands outstretched in front of her as she went, calling all the while to her teammates who'd seemingly disappeared into thin air.

Or thick air, depending entirely on your view of the nature of mist and fog.

She lost her footing several times and sank up to her ankles in mud as she tried to regain her balance.

She failed and fell face first into the mud (a trend, it would seem, since Lennon had done it once already. But then again, that was the nature of a mud planet. Lots of opportunities for physical comedy involving face plants.), coming up gasping and trying to keep the muck from sneaking up her nostrils and down her throat.

Whoever perpetuated the idea that mud baths were glamorous needed his head examined. It was like sticking your head in a bowl of Jell-O at its gooiest stage and then trying to pry yourself free again. Nothing sophisticated or prestigious about it, just a big fat _mess_.

But on the up side, at least there weren't any mud men in sight.

On the down side…there wasn't much of anything _else_ in sight either.

The Busters Commander scrubbed at her eyes, endeavoring to remove the grit from them so she could see her surroundings without a thick veneer of muck adorning her field of vision.

All there was to see was that same overwhelmingly viscous, almost syrupy murkiness that seemed to make a conscious effort to cling to her skin and cloud her vision.

It smacked of an overzealous horror movie director with a fog machine and Charlotte could _hardly_ take that as being a good sign. After all, Techie had spent an entire year studying the finer points of horror movie writing and directing…and it had been a good long while since she'd written anything truly horrific…

This, to Charlotte, spoke of trouble and as the mist started to change from plain white fog to a deep ominous red color before her eyes, she thought it prudent to draw her weapon and be on the ready for whatever might jump out at her.

Not that she'd have been able to see her attacker until it was too late, but she felt better having the nine millimeter clutched in her hand. For someone like Charlotte, her gun was her security blanket.

She traveled stealthily on, getting more anxious by the second to the point that she was beginning to wish she could stop and light up one of her trademark cigars just to take the edge off. It was too quiet. Not even the sound of an echo from one of her teammates reached her and this fact did little to make her feel more at ease.

Foot after foot she continued across the muddy landscape, only narrowly avoiding falling half a dozen more times before something silver about ten feet in front of her caught her attention. It was a slight glimmer in the haze, bright and sparkling in comparison to the rest of her surroundings and she found herself inexplicably drawn to it.

Something in her memory was trying to trigger as she approached the silver, which glowed more and more brilliantly the closer she got, and somewhere deep inside her alarm bells were ringing, warning her that something about this seemed _wrong_.

When she was about four feet from the silver, the mist started to part in front of her, revealing what it was that she was approaching.

About six feet high and three feet wide, the silver was, in actuality, a large rectangular mirror. Charlotte's image was slightly distorted, the way a carnival funhouse mirror would have made her appear and again the warning alarms in her head got louder.

She touched the surface of the mirror and she found it cool and slick beneath her hand. However, it also had a little bit of give to it. If she pressed with any force at all, it wiggled and waved, making her mirror image quiver.

Crunch.

She spun on her heel, the mirror forgotten in favor of looking for whatever had made the noise. "Hello?"

"Hnnnnguh!"

Green eyes grew wide at the sound. It didn't take a genius to figure out what kind of creature made _that_ sort of unintelligible sound.

Charlotte's inner tactician came to a violently sudden realization, as if she'd just been doused with ice water.

She was backed up against something solid and with the blinding fog on all sides, she couldn't try to escape without running the risk of slamming into whatever had been pursuing her without her knowledge.

She'd quite effectively trapped herself without recognizing this fact until it was too late.

"GAH!"

Charlotte took another step back, gun brought up to eye level, but the sudden shock of having the cold glass of the mirror hitting her spine made her jump.

That jump made the mirror's surface wave a little more, like the surface of a pool when it's disturbed by someone dropping something into it and some unseen force reached out from the depths of the mirror to grab Charlotte around the waist and drag her backwards into the world beyond the smooth silver.

The last sound Charlotte uttered before she was yanked fully into the mirror was a blood curdling scream.


	20. Well, Could Be Worse

Contrary to what Charlotte believed, the creature in the mist who had been moaning and groaning was _not_ in fact some dreadful monster bent on eating her. Instead, it was the very put-upon Veruca Touchstone, who'd just had a nasty run-in with half a dozen mud men who thought she was a living, breathing beach ball.

Hair plastered to her head with muck and clothes in just as bad shape she fumbled through the fog until she bumped into two other mud covered beings.

As a result of the collision, all three of them went sprawling on the ground, not twelve feet from the mysterious funhouse mirror that Charlotte was currently studying.

Of course, they couldn't _see_ Charlotte with all the vapors curling around them ominously taking on the color of fresh blood, but after Lennon hit the ground, screeched "GAH!" and all three of them struggled to get out of the mud, they froze at the sound of one of the most chilling screams ever to grace a fic.

Lennon, not surprisingly, was the first to react by shouting "Charlie!" and heading off in the direction where the shriek had come from.

McKay, being compelled by the Angora Strain, was close at her heels, and Veruca had no choice but to follow _him_.

A short distance later they found themselves in front of the silver mirror and Lennon looked absolutely appalled.

"Oh _God_ no," Lennon groaned. "Not this. Please not this. Anything but this!"

"What?" McKay asked in confusion, feeling somewhat more concerned for Lennon than he thought he should have (damn Angora Strain infection!) "What is it?"

"It's a mirror," Veruca replied, slanting her eyes at Rodney and one eyebrow lifting sardonically. "I thought that much would be fairly obvious."

"I _meant_ what's it for? Inter dimensional travel?" McKay questioned.

"Oh, please, nothing so simple," Lennon said, running her hand along the surface of the mirror. "This is the entrance to the Alternaverse."

"The _what_?"

"Alternaverse. Mirrorverse. Whatever you want to call it, this is where our darker 'Anti' counterparts came from." Lennon poked the mirror again and watched as its surface wriggled under her touch. "On the other side of this is a bizzaro world where everything is upside down and inside out and wrong way around…and it ain't no Wonderland."

"My God," Veruca exclaimed in horror. "Charlotte's been sucked inside, hasn't she?"

"Do you really need to ask? Why _else_ would it be here, right in our path, unless we were meant to go through?" Lennon asked bitterly. "And our dear creator knows good and well we'd never go in _willingly_, knowing what awaits us on the other side, so…"

"Charlotte is the bait being dangled in front of our faces," Veruca finished with a wince.

"Bingo." Lennon turned to stare at McKay. "You might want to hold your breath for this."

"What? Hold my breath for--YAAAH!" Lennon got behind McKay and gave him a hard shove, sending him careening through the glass-like substance in front of him before Veruca leapt through, followed by a reluctant but determined Lennon.

On the other side of the mirror, Lennon immerged gasping and sputtering, soaking wet and shimmering slightly, due to the fact that the mirror was indeed more like a liquid than originally thought, and as such some of its shiny residue clung to those who'd passed through it.

Veruca and McKay were also covered in the shimmering mirror fluid, but Lennon was more concerned with the person they were both hovering over.

Charlotte, looking somewhat dazed, was sitting on the ground rubbing her forehead and grumbling.

"Charlie? You okay?"

"I'm fine."

"What happened?"

"Something dragged me through," Charlotte said, shifting her hand to rub at her side where she was sure bruises were beginning to form. "But whatever it was, it let me go as soon as I got here."

"Typical." Lennon reached out and grabbed Charlotte by the hand, tugging her up off the ground. "Well, at least we're all reunited again and we can get back to the _normal_ universe."

"Uh…I don't think that's going to be an option," Veruca said suddenly, glancing over Lennon's shoulder. "The mirror…"

"What about it?"

"It's _gone_."

Lennon spun on her heel to find that, yes, the shining rectangle of silver had vanished. "You have GOT to be kidding me!"

Releasing her commanding officer, the geek angrily stalked to the place where the mirror had been standing mere moments before, groping at the nothingness in front of her just in case it was still there but invisible to the naked eye.

Nothing.

"I don't believe this!" Lennon screeched, kicking at a lump of mud furiously. "An Alternaverse mirror is the only way in or out and it's gone! We're trapped here! Damn it!"

"Lennon, stay calm," Charlotte said in a warning voice, noticing that a rather worrying mist was starting to gather around the geek.

"Calm? CALM? You want me to stay **calm**? I have had it up to here--" Lennon drew an imaginary line six inches above her head, "with the twists and turns and damned plot devices coming out of nowhere to make my life a living hell! "

"Lenny…" The mist was growing thicker still, taking on an almost solid blobby shape behind the geek, getting bigger and bigger as she railed on, unaware of what was happening at her back.

"Mark my words, the second we find our way out of here and the Angora Strain is eradicated, I QUIT! I am done! Over! Finished! Kaput! Ve--"

The cloud had grown to a monstrous size and it engulfed the geek, knocking her over as though it had actually _tackled_ her.

THUD.


	21. Doooom!

Although for a few moments, Charlotte, Veruca and Rodney were all prepared to start panicking in earnest, the geek just swore in four different languages (one was Klingon, McKay noted with interest) and fought through the seemingly solid cloud, struggling to her feet.

Apparently, it wasn't meant to be so much a deadly enemy as it was meant to be a nuisance, because it _allowed_ the geek to get up.

Of course, that still didn't make it a _normal_ cloud. Aside from its odd behavior, there were several other attributes it had which made it _very_ different from other little black clouds…and just as a for instance…

"Doom!" The little cloud proclaimed, in a voice not unlike that of Betty Boop. "DOOM!"

"Oh _goodie_," Lennon muttered as she swatted at the little black mass that had attached itself to her. "A doom cloud."

"**DOOM**!" It shouted excitedly, like an overactive child might and it spun around Lennon's head in a parody of a jig, chanting "Doom! DOOM! DOOOOOOM!"

Rodney stared blankly at the bizarre display playing out in front of him. A talking cloud? A talking, _affectionate_ cloud? Had he lost his marbles?

No, on second thought, best not to ask _that_.

"A _what_?"

"A _doom clould_," Lennon repeated, as though McKay were being particularly dense.

"A doom cloud is...a cloud of doom," Charlotte said in clarification. "It's pretty self explanatory, really."

"DOOM!"

"It's a harbinger of sorts. It shows up to tell you that you're totally boned." Lennon swatted at the cloud again. "Like I wasn't aware of that _already_."

The cloud bounced up and down with all the vigor of a hyper Jack Russell Terrier. "Doom!"

"I get it!" Lennon exclaimed impatiently.

"This is the most...personable doom cloud I've ever met," Veruca said with curiosity in her voice. "Most of them just show up and hang over your head."

"DOOM!"

"Lucky me, I get the one with personality." The cloud tried to tackle Lennon again. "STOP THAT!"

"DOOM!"

"My, what an impressive vocabulary you have," Lennon answered sardonically.

"How do we get rid of it?" Rodney asked, trying to keep from looking amused as Lennon smacked at the seemingly friendly ebony cloud.

"We don't." Charlotte shrugged, barely keeping her upper lip from curling up into the ghost of a smile. "It'll leave on its own, when it feels like its purpose has been fulfilled."

"DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

"Regular workaholic, this one." Lennon smacked at it as it tried to engulf her again. "Okay, I get it, I'm doomed, thank you for the news flash. You can go now."

"DOOM!" The cloud floated around the geek and if it had been possible for a cloud to grin, that one would've been. "Doom!"

"I don't think it wants to leave," Rodney stated, somewhat unnecessarily.

"It likes you," Charlotte agreed.

"DOOM!"

"Looks like you've got a new pet, Lenny."

"Elation," Lennon answered in her most put upon voice.

"Elation!" The cloud parroted. "DOOM!"


	22. Will The Complications Ever Cease?

_Also meanwhile_...

Things might not have been sunshine and lollipops at the Muse's Syndicate, but they were downright _nasty_ on Atlantis. Sunshine and lollipops? No, more like rain clouds and sour apples.

And the worst part about it was that only one man seemed to be aware of the..._things_ that were going on.

Or maybe it was Major Lorne who was losing his marbles and the rest of the city's inhabitants were perfectly sane. He couldn't tell. All he knew was that something about the way things felt was desperately, desperately _off_.

Now, to be fair, poor old Major Lorne was never really meant to be a main character. He's always been a peripheral on-the-edges-of-the-scene type of guy, save for those few moments when the focus was shifted to him, so he found himself at a bit of a loss to suddenly feel the weight of a major (pun unintentional) role on the horizon.

However: the Plot Bunnies would give no quarter--and since _someone_ had shipped Charlotte with Lorne...

(Cough, Nenya, cough cough)

Well, a starring part was inescapable, whether Techie liked it or not.

So it was for this reason that Major Lorne was the only one to notice the subtle shifts in reality as they started to happen all over again, and he watched as things went from bad to very bad to gerbil in a microwave bad.

It started much the same way the second time as it had the first; save for the fact that rather than random acts of violence or sudden changing of sexual identity, there was romance in the air.

Literally...he knew he had troubles when little pink hearts started floating around people's heads.

At first he thought he was seeing things, but then he tried to touch one of the little pink hearts (harbingers of certain disaster!) and found it was _quite_ solid.

Then, with all the drama of a cymbal crash at the end of a symphony performance, all hell broke loose.

Crewmen were practically attacking each other in the halls--Weir and Sheppard; Teyla and Ronon; Beckett and Cadman--they simply couldn't keep their hands off each other.

And the only reason that Major Lorne didn't join them in their revels was due to the fact that _his_ ship was on another _planet_, leaving him thinking clearly--at least, clearly in comparison to everyone _else_, which was comparable to saying he was the sharpest spoon in the drawer.

All of Atlantis had seemingly gone mad and Lorne knew for a fact that the only people alive who would be able to make the madness cease were elsewhere...

And he had to get to them ASAP.


	23. I Don't Need No Stinking Chapter Title!

The group of four---

"DOOM!"

Forgive me, the group of _five_ tromped along the muddy alien landscape, trying not to get stuck in the azure colored muck that the original brown gave way to the further they went. They traveled silently, an unspoken agreement between them that they were on the lookout for any signs of another Alternaverse mirror, and the sun--which was bright purple and _square_--sank lower and lower in the sky until night was approaching in all its dark emerald green glowy glory.

Don't look at me like that; it's the Alternaverse. Everything is different, from the grass (hot pink) to the sparrows (white and red polka dotted).

Despite the strangeness of their surroundings, the adventuring party adapted exceedingly well, considering the circumstances; although McKay _did _launch into a rant every few minutes whenever he came across something that defied the laws of physics.

"This is insane. This _place_ is insane!" He squawked angrily, staring at a violet colored potato thing that had sprouted legs and was running away from a…steak knife with legs. "I feel like I'm in a Warner Brothers' cartoon!"

"What else is new? This is all standard _her_ stuff." Lennon gestured upwards rather rudely. "She's gotta make things interesting."

"Why can't she just make things _easy_?"

Charlotte bit out a laugh. "Boy, you _still_ don't get it, do you McKay? Our very existence hinges on how interesting our adventures are. No action, no _life_. If our lives get dull, we go back to the Creative Limbo from which we sprang."

"Creative Limbo?" He looked at Charlotte oddly. "Do you just…pull this stuff out of thin air or do they give you a manual about how to talk like a crazy person, just so you have all the basics down?"

"That manual isn't out yet," Veruca replied. "Besides, haven't _you_ ever been to Creative Limbo?"

"I most certainly have _not_. Unlike _some_ people, I reside in the _real_ world, not crazy-knocked-out-cuckoo-land."

All three Bunny Busters shared a knowing smirk. "If you say so, McKay."

"You still didn't answer my question," he replied, suspicion evident in his tone. "What's Creative Limbo?"

The smirks fell.

"We don't like to talk about it."

"It's a horrible place. Just…_horrible._" Lennon shivered visibly and the doom cloud tipped itself on its axis, mimicking the way a dog would tilt its head in concern for its master.

"Doom?"

"Very much so."

"Creative Limbo," Charlotte said with a wince, "Is where all the…Unused go."

"Unused?"

Charlotte bit her lip and scrunched up her face, trying to find the right way to explain the concept. "Okay…did you ever write a story as a child? For a school assignment or something?"

"I suppose," Rodney answered, wondering where this line of questioning was going.

"Alright, well, the second you put pen to paper and wrote something, you created a whole world within that story. Characters, worlds, races; everything came into existence. For you it's just a story, but somewhere, it became reality. When you finished writing the tale--everything went into Creative Limbo. It's…pretty much a giant waiting room. If you're a fictional character not in a story and you're not being used anymore, you're in Limbo unless someone writes something new for you or someone reads the story you're already in."

"Limbo's not a nice place to be," Lennon added. "It's like being in stasis, but without the whole 'sleeping' part. You're awake and aware of the fact you're trapped with nothing to do and no free will of your own."

"Have any of you ever been…?"

"No, no; we've been active since our creation, but sooner or later we'll wind up in Limbo too."

"That's…horrible," McKay said, genuinely upset.

"Not really, it's just part of any fictional character's life span--OC's included. We live on in the hearts and minds of the people who've written for us or have read about us, but…once she--" Lennon pointed upwards again, "pulls the plug, that's all she wrote. Literally and figuratively."

"Isn't there any way to keep that from happening?"

"Sure, if we get the required 'happy ending' or we continue our adventures indefinitely, but the odds of either happening are rather small. I mean, this is _us_ we're talking about. I'm a whump magnet, what chance have I got for a happy ending?"

A foreign voice broke in on the little foursome's--

"DOOM!"

Foursome plus _one's_ conversation then, thick and heavy with a British flavor to it. "You do realize you have the power to deny your creator and defy her, don't you?"

All four people--and one cloud, mustn't forget the damn attention whore of a cloud--spun on their heels towards the source of the voice to find…

Mud men.

Two of them.

Wearing…waistcoats and pocket watches?

Charlotte was the first one to train her weapon on the intruders on their little pow-wow, but the mud men's reactions were far from being the expected ones.

"Is violence _really_ necessary?" The first one asked, his voice a thick Boston drawl. "Can't we settle this like civilized adults?"

"Uh…I hate to be the one to break this to you, sparky, but you're a mud man."

"Correction." The second spoke again in that lovely English accent. "I am an Alternaverse mud man. Therefore, I am the opposite of what your definition of 'mud man' is in _your_ world. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Henry, and this strapping fellow to my left, is McCoy."

Both of Lennon's eyebrows shot up--a show of extreme surprise, since usually only _one_ eyebrow ever bothered to move its lazy self from its customary place on her face. "She named you after _Beast_?"

Henry glared at Lennon with the little beetle black eyes that stuck out oddly from his brown, muddy, slightly misshapen and melty face. "Let us make one thing perfectly clear right now, young woman: **she** didn't name us anything."

"Indeed madam. We named ourselves after we rose from the primordial muddy ooze of this planet."

"If our creator had her way, we would have remained unthinking brutes, rather than evolving beyond our original limitations."

"And besides _that_," Henry said haughtily, "_She_ would have no doubt named us after something _else_. We selected our names based on all the information we had ingrained in our minds from the creator. I have named myself Henry, in reference to a certain professor by the name of Higgins, and my brother has named himself McCoy after a notable physician."

"The fact that our names _together_ are that of an…what was it brother? An Avenger?"

"X-Men," Veruca said suddenly, sounding slightly annoyed at the mud man's mistake. "Henry McCoy was part of the X-Men."

"Whatever he was," McCoy continued flippantly with a dismissive wave of one of his muddy hands. "Our names' association with him is an unfortunate coincidence, nothing more and furthermore, we reject all authority of the one called 'Techie'."

"You _do_ know she can like...smite you, right?"

"Doom!" The little cloud proclaimed happily, adding to the conversation.

"Shut it, gloomy," Lennon snapped irritably.

"Gloomy?" One murky eye narrowed and another widened on Henry's face--showing that, if he'd had any eyebrows to speak of, one of them would have been raised. "Named the unthinking mass, have you?"

"DOOM!" The cloud angrily replied, seeming to response to the insult negatively.

"He doesn't like being called unthinking," Lennon said, not knowing why she was coming to the defense of the creature that had attached itself to her less that three chapters ago. "And besides, _you're _made of mud. You're hardly worthy to be a judge of anyone _else_!"

"I am mud with intellect. The cloud has a vocabulary of _one word_."

"Elation! Gloom! DOOM!" It shouted in his face, proving him wrong on the 'vocabulary of one word' issue.

"I stand corrected, three words."

"Word!" The cloud exclaimed.

"Four."

"It has the ability to _learn_?" McCoy asked, looking at the cloud with curiosity.

"At least the ability to repeat things."

"Most intriguing."

Henry looked at his brother, mildly annoyed. "Very well, I concede it has the abilities of a parrot, but that hardly makes it as smart as _we_."

"DOOOOOM!"

"Yes, yes, you're very intimidating," Lennon said soothingly. "We tremble with fear at the sound of your voice, Gloomy."

'Gloomy' bounced back to Lennon, repeating his favorite word as he attempted once more to fasten himself to her side.

As the geek tried to extract herself from the affectionate doom cloud's grasp, Charlotte turned back to Henry and McCoy.

"Well, it's been a lovely chat, but we _really_ should be going."

"We will accompany you."

Charlotte stopped dead in her mental tracks. "Beg your pardon?"

"We are instrumental to the plot."

"Instrumental!" Gloomy parroted, latching onto the new word gleefully.

"Look, we've already reluctantly added another to our little group." Veruca jerked her head at the overly sociable cloud. "We don't _need_ more trouble."

"We're instrumental--"

"So's a tuba, but you don't see people lining up to carry one of 'em around with them."

Henry continued as if he hadn't been interrupted by Lennon's sarcasm. "We _are_ instrumental to the unfolding of events on this planet, I tell you. We _must_ accompany you for _her_ plans to develop correctly."

Veruca crossed her arms over her chest. "I thought you said you rejected her authority?"

"We may reject the plans of the creator, but that doesn't mea the creator has _abandoned_ said plans."

"We reject and resist her authority over us, yes, but we are still…_compelled_ to go with you."

Charlotte looked warily at her teammates and then back at the outwardly innocuous mud men. "You're compelled, huh?"

"Yes. We _must_ accompany you. It is imperative to all our continued survivals."

"Well, I suppose…if it's part of the plan…"

"DOOM!"

Lennon muttered to Gloomy as she suspiciously eyeballed the two mud men, "You can say that again."

"DOOM! DOOM!"

"I didn't mean _literally_."


	24. What Was Your Name Again?

For the second time in the Plot Bunny saga, Charlotte Walker felt the edges of her mind tingling with that impending sense of doom (and this had absolutely _nothing_ to do with Gloomy the doom cloud, surprisingly) which she called her 'Spidey sense'.

Naturally, since it was the second time in as many months that she had experienced the sensation, she started to wonder whether or not that medical treatment she'd sought oh-so-long-ago for the radioactive spider bite she'd received whilst in the Spider-Man universe had been as effective as originally thought.

Charlotte's nose twitched.

And wriggled.

And did a fair impression of a rabbit's nose.

(Which was very worrying, considering just how rabbits were portrayed in this series.)

Lennon, who was on the lookout for signs of behavior that could be deemed 'odd' (because she was the reigning expert on strange behavior and knew it when she saw it), noticed Charlotte's twitching and narrowed her eyes at her commanding officer.

"Charlie?"

Charlotte glanced behind herself, ignoring the geek's attempt to garner her attention.

Lennon shared a concerned look with Veruca. "Yo, Earth to Charlotte!"

"We're not on Earth," the redhead replied distractedly, scanning the horizon behind her as though she was searching for something.

"Gee, like the talking mud men didn't tip anybody off," Lennon replied, barely containing the urge to roll her eyes.

Charlotte still didn't look at her teammate. "Shut up, Lennon…something is…wrong."

"_Very_ specific," Henry the mud man drawled. "I don't suppose you know what that something _is_, do you?"

"I haven't got the foggiest notion," the busters commander replied, turning back to her traveling companions--all six of them. "Whatever it is, it's…I don't know. Something is off. Something…something…"

"Life altering? Plot pushing?"

"It's something…itchy."

"Itchy," McKay said in disbelief. "_Itchy_. That's the only adjective you could get a firm hold on?"

"No, but it's the one that fits," Charlotte answered, scrunching up her face. "It's…itchy. _I'm_ itchy…and I don't know why."

"You didn't tromp through any alien poison ivy, did you?" Veruca asked, concerned.

"Not that I'm aware of, but that _is_ how it feels."

Lennon's eyes snapped wide open so quickly that she actually _heard_ the movement of her eyelids across the surface of her eyeballs. "Hell. It's a ship arrow wound infection reassertion."

"I believe you mean a Ship Arrow Wound Infection Reassertion," McCoy corrected, coughing delicately behind one hand to soften the blow of his correction.

Lennon glared at him. "What's the difference?"

"Capitalization."

"Like _that_ matters?"

"It does," McCoy continued. "Canon capitalization is just as important as maintaining Canon spelling."

"Who died and made you the regulation book?"

McCoy looked unflinchingly at the geek. "The regulation book."

Lennon grew thoughtful. "Oh…right…it never was finished, was it?"

"Nor will it ever be."

Charlotte's tenuous grasp on her patience snapped like a thin piece of cord under too much strain. "If you two are done playing grammar nazis, could we _please_ get back to the storyline at hand?"

"It's 'Nazis'."

"Shut. Up." Charlotte shook her head and blinked repeatedly. "None of that is important right now. What's important is that there's something _wrong_ going on and we need to find out what it is. I'm experiencing the effects of a ship arrow wound--I _mean_, a Ship Arrow Wound Infection Reassertion--and I haven't a clue as to _why_. I'm not shipped with anyone here."

"Not anyone _here_," Veruca stated. "But back on Atlantis?"

Charlotte's face flushed with realization, cheeks turning almost as crimson as her hair. "Lorne."

---

Poor old Major Lorne had been quite forgotten by the illustrious author up until this point, mostly because she hadn't the faintest idea what to _do_ with him.

There were some people who could write him and some people who just…couldn't. Techie was one of the latter, sadly. Or at least, she _could_ write him, but she didn't want to be one of those poor idiotic people who wrote him _badly._

Knowing ones boundaries in writing _can_ be a good thing and she had all but decided that this was one of those times when she'd reached the barbed wire fence between 'Doable' and 'CREATIVE SUICIDE!' and should just abandon the whole Lorne idea.

But then the image of a sinister little bunny rabbit with a moustache/goatee combo and a sparkly sash assaulted her senses and suddenly everything sank into place like a group of puzzle pieces.

Yes, Major Lorne, unfortunate thing that he was--not that anyone in this series was particularly fortunate to begin with--, was being stalked by an Alternate Universe Bunny, of the evil twin variety.

Perhaps if the aforementioned bunny hadn't stopped every few minutes to rub its paws together and chuckle low and menacingly in its throat in a villainous manner (because after all, there's nobody alive who rubs their hands together and laughs at the same time with _good_ intentions) it would have caught up with the marine a little bit faster.

Thankfully for the bunny, the author threw up several stumbling blocks for Lorne, slowing him down enough so that the wickedly inclined fluff ball could catch up.

Major Lorne had stopped to take a rest and gather his badly scattered wits, trying to decide what his next course of action should be, when the rabbit saw its opportunity to strike mercilessly.

Calling upon the ancient Plot Bunny magic ingrained within its sparkly sash clad body, it rubbed its forepaws together and laughed the most ominous laugh it could.

Sure, maybe it sounded like one of the Chipmunks, but it _did_ summon a tremendous thunder crack and a bright, sizzling green flash of lightning that streaked across the sky and struck fifteen feet behind Lorne.

Left on the smoking spot of ground, where the heat of the lightning had baked the muddy soil solid, a figured knelt, curled in on itself, arms crossed over and hugging its feminine torso.

The figure straightened itself out and stretched in a patently feline style, long brown hair spilling over her shoulders as she stood and surveyed her surroundings with an air of haughtiness that only one of her kind could muster.

Brown eyes fluttered over the landscape before coming to rest on the back of Major Lorne and the face of the lightning beckoned being cracked into an altogether too familiar grin.

She approached him, cautiously maintaining the appearance of a harmless damsel in distress (since that would appeal to him, surely). "Hello."

Lorne turned abruptly, gun drawn.

At the sight of the mousy unarmed brunette he lowered it ever so slightly. "Who're you?"

"A guide," she replied easily. "I'm here to help you along your way. Who're you?"

"Major Lorne," he answered far too quickly for a military man.

"Haven't you got a first name?"

"I'm Evan. I mean…Marcus." He shook his head from side to side. "No, Evan. Marcus. Or Evan. I can't remember. Evan, I think. Nobody can seem to make up their minds, despite the fact that the powers that be have given me a proper name already."

"I'll just call you Major, I think."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "What can I call _you_?"

Her grin grew just a little bit wider. "You can call me…Madge."

Anti-Madison was _back_.


	25. Another Brief Interlude

_And off in the 'real' world..._

Techie was having an interesting day.

Night.

Day.

Morning.

Whatever the hell it was, it was interesting.

Interesting in that "Someone, please shoot me in the head with a high caliber weapon" sort of way.

So far it'd been a decent year (which wasn't much of a surprise, since Techie's experience was that unlike Star Trek movies, it was the _odd_ numbered ones that rocked, not the even). She'd won a couple of Isis Awards, been nommed for Stargate Fan Awards and published a book, but that didn't make this particular _day_ any better.

The geek sat at the mouth of her tiny closet, sifting through a plastic storage container, which was crammed to the brim with old issues of Wizard magazine, paperback books she'd gotten at various rummage sales, CDs and action figures.

Feverishly she shoved one thing aside and then another, only getting distracted once or twice by something shiny (damn those arcade tokens and their nifty newness. Damn them!) "Inspiration. Neeeed inspiraaaation."

The frantic searching through the Tchotchke box (that's Yiddish for 'beloved junk' and no, I will not explain how you can pronounce it without spraining something) was brought on by the sudden, absolutely unexpected disappearance of Techie's entire personal harem of Muses.

Comicus, both Stans, Quentin _and_ Garfunkle. Just POOF! and they were gone. All five of them.

Techie kept a great many Muses hiding in the wings, you see, each one for a different purpose. Comicus was for writing; Quentin was for film making; Garfunkle was in charge of art; Stanlee was to blame for business ventures and Stan Krubish was in charge of poetry.

Usually, Comicus was at the helm, and when he got exhausted, one of the others would step in and take over for a day or two.

Not so this time.

They had all disappeared simultaneously.

As had the ever shrinking plot bunny population.

It was bizarre the way all of her ideas had just popped out of existence, leaving her all alone in the world without any creative drive.

So she did what every creative entity does when they feel the need to have the muse working away at the brain.

She tried to force it.

"Inspiration!" She cried desperately, shuffling around the the Tchotchke box. "Something! Anything! GAH!"

Pain exploded in her left hand and she instinctively yanked it back out of the box, stuffing her punctured thumb in her mouth and sucking on it as she glared at the box.

"Stupid pokey McFarlane action figures and their stupid pointy bits," she grumbled from around her thumb. "Ought to _sue_ that's what I ought to do."

Well, the box was a bust. Music _should_ have been her next move, but she'd exhausted the CD shelf already--even going so far as to get down the "Plot Bunny Mix" disc.

Even the Rabbit Riff Blues hadn't brought about any ideas and _that_ was a bad sign if ever she'd seen one.

Techie's eyes narrowed behind her glasses.

Rabbit Riff Blues.

Blues.

_Blues_.

She froze in place, aching thumb abandoned in favor of staring blankly straight ahead as the waves of thought in her head crashed together and coalesced into something solid and understandable instead of strings of unconnected text in her native gibberish.

POP.

A plot bunny burst into being and twitched its nose at her.

She smiled at it, looking terribly shark-like.

Pop. Pop. POP! POP, POP, POP!

Like a bag of microwave popcorn, little balls of rabbit-y fluff popped into existence so quickly that Techie soon found herself hip deep in them.

This was even better than the idea for the army of Canon Fact Assassins.

Not that _they_ weren't good, but she wasn't in the mood to write ninjas right now, regardless of how cool they might have been.

She scrambled off the floor, barely keeping her balance and dashed across the room, colliding with her bed frame and taking a good sized chunk out of her ankle in the course of her fumbling and reaching for the Superman notebook on her bedside table.

Techie flipped the cover open so fast she nearly tore it off (What did she care? She was a Batman fan, not a Superman fan. Duh.), untangled the pencil that was holding up her mass of unmanageable black curls and scribbled two words on the paper with its far too short and stubby graphite end.

_Plot hole._

-

A/N: Quick! New challenge! (We haven't done one of those for this story yet, have we? Well, we are now. Time to get involved!) Canon Fact Assassins. What are they? What do they do? Make one! Write a story! Post it! Make up your own CFA and be a part of the Plot Bunny 'Verse! You can do it, I have faith in you. I've already got a plan for the CFA army, but I want to know what springs to mind for _you_! Write it! -bounce-


	26. Holy Crap, An Update

The room was white. Stark. Completely unadorned. The air was still--no windows--thusly, no breeze, and at the very center of said room stood Lennon, Charlotte and Veruca, still as the proverbial statues.

"I don't like it here," Veruca stated somewhat unnecessarily, only her mouth moving, giving her the appearance of being a ventriloquist dummy without the ability to move its wooden limbs.

"Well of _course_ you don't like it here; it's facacta creative _limbo_! We're not supposed to like it! We've been stuck here in virtual suspended animation for over two months!"

"Three," Charlotte corrected--also without moving.

"Whatever!" Lennon snapped. "If I don't get out of here soon I'm going to need to KILL something!"

"I'm sure it'll be over soon, Lenny. It's gotta be."

"It **better** be!"

Suddenly, the entire room started to shake, the walls waving and becoming very unstable looking.

"Hey! Limbo is collapsing!" Veruca exclaimed. "We're being reinstated!"

"It's damn well about time!"

---

Techie felt terribly guilty about leaving her beloved Bunny Busters in creative limbo for so very long--she had _tried_ to convince herself she wasn't going to complete The Angora Strain because it wasn't going anywhere and then discovered after several months time that her notes were still poking at her--so she flung herself head first back into the universe…just like so:

Contrary to what most people might think, seven is hardly an ideal number for a traveling party.

Especially when three of the members of said party are either chattering constantly in irritating accents, or trying to attach themselves to your side while shouting about just how totally doomed you are.

But, things being what they were, the Bunny Busters didn't have much choice in the matter. It was either this or…well, actually there was no alternative, really.

Of course, in comparison to the mud men from their own reality, Henry and McCoy were absolute gentlemen, despite their habit of dripping on Lennon's sneakers (not that those weren't ruined already; canvas was hardly a good protection against the elements). Charlotte traveled ahead of the group a little ways, scouting for a good place to camp and Veruca in companionable silence next to McKay.

Lennon was trapped between the mud men on either side of her and the doom cloud that circled her like an over excited pet, bouncing and screeching whatever words it had picked up through listening to the other sentient beings' conversation. Thus far, Gloomy was learning Yiddish with startling proficiency, as it had already shouted that McKay was 'an utter nebbish' and that Henry was '_such_ a mensch!' (emphasis not mine).

To Lennon's dismay, it was like having a small, cloud shaped version of her mother attached to her side.

But, unbeknownst to the Bunny Busters and their companions, this was _not_ going to be the least of their upcoming troubles.

---

Back in the 'regular' universe, where the sun was yellow and mud was brown, Major Mar--I mean, _Evan_--Lorne was swaying unevenly on a rope bridge over bubbling acidic goo--

Wait, was it bubbling acidic goo or was it lava? Dammit, it's been too long since I looked at my notes. One moment please.

Oh, right. Totally toxic green goo. Well, I was _close_ anyway.

Ahem. Rewind!

Back in the 'regular' universe, where the sun was yellow and mud was brown, Major Mar--I mean, _Evan_--Lorne was swaying unevenly on a rope bridge over a river of totally toxic green goo, following dutifully after Anti-Madison (there's that hyphen again; I really need to make up my mind about those things, don't I?).

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Lorne asked, the bridge wobbling beneath his feet with astonishing vigor, considering it wasn't capable of independent movement.

"Of course we are. You want to get to Charlotte, don't you?" she asked, not looking back at him.

"Well, yeah…but you haven't told me how you know her or--"

"I used to be partners with her," Anti-Madison said dismissively, taking another step and causing the bridge to wiggle some more.

"Yeah, okay, I believe you _there_," he was almost to the other side of the bridge now and very thankful for it. "You're too calm about the weirdness that's going down to _not_ be acquainted with the APBA; but why would Charlotte be across a river of green toxic goo?"

Anti-Madison stepped up on the solid ground to be found at the other side of the bridge and helped Lorne find his footing, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards her.

"First of all," she said, brushing him off before continuing on her way, beckoning him to follow, "It's totally toxic green goo--there _is_ a difference, though I don't expect _you_ to understand it--"

She led him through the dense forest and into the clearing where Joe the Amnesia Bunny was waiting patiently on his throne with the _real_ Madison (or the clone that housed her consciousness, at any rate) chained up and glaring at him.

"And _second_ of all…" Anti-Madison spun on her heel the moment Joe was in sight, a gun somehow seemingly magically pulled out of thin air and pointed directly at Lorne's chest before he had the chance to react at all. "Who ever said anything about _us_ going to _her_?"

"**You're going to hold me hostage?"** Lorne exclaimed angrily.

"There's no need to get all bold faced about it," Anti-Madison said with an intense glower. "Really, some people have _no_ sense of subtlety."

"Says she that italicizes her every other word," Joe said in boredom, clapping his paws together and calling forth roughly a dozen smaller, fluffier, cuter--

"Excuse me?" Joe called up to the heavens. "I happen to be unbearably adorable!"

"But," the phantom voice seemed somewhat muddled. "You're the evil antagonist. You can't be adorable _and_ the personification of true, total, all encompassing evil."

Joe turned a white hot glare in the direction of the voice. "Two words: Caddyshack Gopher."

The voice choked and a sound that was suspiciously similar to a loud "thud" echoed across the sky.

Anti-Madison looked at Joe curiously. "What in the name of the seven hells was _that_?"

"The obligatory Bill Murray related thunk." Joe cleared his throat. "She _should_ be coming around in a few minutes…in the meantime, why don't we show our _guest_ here the same sort of hospitality we've _already_ indulged dear Agent Nelson in?"

"_Now_ who's italicizing?" Anti-Madison grumbled, shifting and reaching for a pair of handcuffs that she'd been keeping in her pocket so that she could properly restrain Major Lorne.

"Silence, impudent human," Joe said grandly, brushing his ears back in much the same manner someone might've slicked their hair away from their face. "It's my evil empire, I'll italicize if I want to."


	27. Holy Crap, ANOTHER Update

A/N: -waves from Tuscaloosa, Alabama-

It's ninety something degrees out. I'm hot, miserable, with Captain and Al and apparently, in the mood to resurrect the Bunny Buster 'verse. Let's see what happens, shall we?

--

_Meanwhile_...

The Stargate on planet MU0-B4LL flared to life once more with a flash of blinding white light, followed by a rippling pool of bright blue. Once the event horizon stabilized, through the gateway stepped Arca and Caesar, still in their traditional muses togas but armed to the teeth. Arca had compared poor Caesar to a plethora of Sylvester Stallone characters at least once every five minutes since they'd left the Muse's Syndicate, and he was bearing it as best he possibly could.

"So, which way we headed, Rambo?" Arca asked, hitching her AK-47 up a little higher by its strap and shielding her eyes against the all too bright sun.

Caesar spared her a withering glare but didn't respond right away. Muses weren't particularly happy with the idea of meddling in truly human affairs by nature. Other than the art of inspiration, most were content to leave humans to their own devices without messing about in their universes and the very act of entering a fandom with the intention of genuine, purposeful interference rubbed him the wrong way. He also found himself feeling more than mild apprehension at the idea of a battle on the forefront. Caesar was edgier than he had any right to be. Sure, muses were immortal, but that didn't mean they were particularly fond of being shot.

Especially if Arca's excited bouncing on the balls of her feet was any indication of the level of her bloodlust.

"Which way are we headed?" she repeated with more than a slight whine to her tone. "I want to kill things already."

"Arca," Caesar's voice was rough and gravelly as he spoke, "this isn't a game. This is a rescue mission. You should be taking this seriously."

Arca took offense and glared at her fellow muse with as much heat as she could possibly muster. "I _am_ taking this seriously, Caesar! Comicus is my mentor! I _want_ to save him. Like, now!"

Caesar looked at her skeptically. "Really?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, before adding in a lower voice, "And the Syndicate can hardly do anything about it if a few plot bunnies just _happen_ to get blasted to smithereens along the way on a rescue mission..."

Caesar looked at his comrade reproachfully. "How can you be thinking about bunny vengeance at a time like this?"

"At a time like this? Hello? My mentor-slash-man-I-think-of-as-a-father-figure has been kidnapped _by_ plot bunnies! I'm allowed to be a little vengeful!"

He boggled at her for a moment. "Mentor? Man you think of as a father figure? You have a deep seeded dislike of Comicus, Arca, don't lie to yourself."

"Just because I don't particularly like _working_ for the old fart doesn't mean I don't like _him_ personally," she said with a sniff, nose in the air. "Besides, it's time we muses got some of our own back, Caesar. The plot bunnies are an abomination and you know it. Overrunning our fandoms, warping the realities that we so carefully construct and maintain with their rabid, often nonsensical, cracktastic plotting! They don't belong! Look at how many crack!fics pop up because of their mere existence!! Fics that never should have come into being--fics that never would've happened if the muses still had full control without the interference of the bunnies! Fics that should not have been allowed to happen!!"

A cough echoed from overhead with as much warning in it as the sound of a cough could possibly hold.

Arca looked at the sky and blinked, realizing her own troublesome contradiction. "I...mean. Crack can be okay sometimes, just not _rabid_ crack. Rabid crack without a plot. Like, killer toasters and things."

Another, slightly more serious cough made Arca roll her eyes and sigh with dismay. "Okay, badly executed crack! Crack is fine as long as it's executed well! We covered, Coughy McWheeze-a-lot?"

"Yup," the phantom voice overhead replied. "Back to the story at hand, dear."

"Anyway, Caesar," Arca started again, sparing the sky one last glance before getting back to pushing plot, "haven't you ever wanted to destroy the things that overrun _our_ place in the universe? Think about it, the bunnies are making a conscious effort to replace us. Us! Muses! We've been around since The Iliad!"

"It's not our _job_, Arca," he answered seriously. "The Great Muse War had so many casualties that after it was over, the Syndicate _had_ to seek a truce and working relationship with the Anti Plot Bunny Agency to keep from losing any more of us. How many were banished to obscure fandoms or trapped in parallel dimensions by Time Travel bunnies and what-have-you? We learned our lesson and the truce _states_ that the bunnies are the APBA's job now. We're in _violation of the rules_ just for stepping into the fandom; we're in violation of the _truce_ by killing bunnies that are rightfully someone else's responsibility."

"Now," Caesar leveled his eyes at his coworker. "This is search and rescue _only_. You don't kill a bunny unless your tangibility in is imminent jeopardy or someone else's life in danger. The Syndicate forbids us from killing these things unless we're about to be shoved through a hole in space-time or something."

"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the bureaucrat," Arca replied sadly with a forlorn shake of her head as she started away from the gate. "Alright. I won't kill anything unless it's _absolutely necessary_..."

"And no staging life threatening crises just for an excuse to 'splode bunnies," Caesar expanded, following after her.

She spun on her heel and glared at him. "Now you're just **trying** to kill my trigger happy buzz!"


End file.
